Twin Poles: Journeyman of Magnetism
by Alara Rogers
Summary: An alternate origin for Joseph in which he gets a spine and Magneto doesn't go nuts.
1. Disclaimer and Notes

Twin Poles: Journeyman of Magnetism: Disclaimer and Notes ****

Twin Poles

An alternate X-Books serial by Alara Rogers

Disclaimer and Notes

There's no such thing as a bad idea, in my opinion, or even an overdone idea. What there is, is ideas that have been done badly so often, or in the same way so often, that one needs to be very, very careful in using them. Good writing can save anything. So here I am, cheerfully resurrecting at least one major Marvel cliche (and you know what? I betcha I'm gonna do more, too), in hopes that when you take the basic concept of certain way overdone ideas, you write it well, and you don't have the idea apply to any Summers or Greys, people will actually be willing to read it. :-) 

Waaay back when, right around the time Joseph started becoming a major wuss as a matter of fact, the netizens of the Magneto Mailing List kicked around the idea that became the seed of this story. That's when I came up with the idea for _Twin Poles_, but as usual, I had too much to write, so I didn't get around to it. 

Since I began this story, Joseph was revealed not to be the original Magneto (in fact, his origin turned out to be uncannily similar to this one, with the exception that in canon, he was created to destroy Magneto and in this he was created to save him, and while both Margaret and Astra are bitches, Margaret is a _smart_ bitch and Astra is a _stupid_ bitch), and then died, pointlessly, because Marvel doesn't know how to handle a clone properly. Well, I do. Also, canon Magneto remains a psycho loon. I just want everyone to know that the story you are reading predates the canon version of Joseph's origin by about two years. 

__

Twin Poles features characters that are copyright to Marvel Comics. It has a few original characters, such as Margaret Santoro, and if you want to use them in anything but a Subreality Cafe, ask first. No copyright infringement is intended, nor is any profit being made on this story. This story may be archived, linked to, publicly reviewed, MSTed or used for kitty litter. Alara Rogers is copyright Alara Rogers and not to be used in a Subreality Cafe or any other story without permission. 

The first story in the series, and so far the only one, is "Journeyman of Magnetism." I do hope to finish writing this one of these days and get on to the next stories in the series. Because JOM has multiple chapters, I've chosen to post the individual _stories_ of this series separately, but chapter each story appropriately.

****

Continuity hounds alert: I began this story before the XM #72 Lehnsherr retcon, and have no intention of rewriting to incorporate it. Nothing that takes place in canonical X-Books post UXM #340, including retcons, takes place in this story unless I specifically write it in. The Magneto LS _did_ take place, but the Shi'ar adventure has not, and will not. Also, the events of "Onslaught: Epilogue" have not and will not take place, as I have different plans for Xavier. 

Oh, one more thing-- I'm trying an experiment in this story. The phonetics to indicate an accent aren't there. Rogue and Gambit and Sam all have the same speech patterns they ever did, but I'm not trying to phonetically spell their accents (if I don't phonetically spell Joseph's accent, and how I would do that is beyond me, why should I spell out Rogue and Gambit?) Let me know what you think of it.


	2. Chapter 1: In which a soccer game is pla...

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 1 ****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 1

Rotating Disclaimer: _Marvel owns everyone but Margaret Santoro (and some random walkons, like Senator Lightman.) But Marvel can't be trusted not to screw these people up, so I have to write about them instead. This is a story about Magneto, so if you can't stand Magneto, bail now. No actual mutants were harmed in the creation of this story._

"Well I'm just in denial of the things I cannot do  
But everything that I can't have is all because of you  
I don't need a guilty conscience  
I don't need to be a star  
All I need is some redemption  
But that just won't get me very far

I don't want to live like this  
I don't want to be like you  
I don't need what I don't miss  
This is what I've got to do"

--Sister Machine Gun, "Desperation"

Imperfect soundproofing let the sound of loud classical music escape the sub-basement laboratory and waft upward into the Xavier manse. One could only hear it from the ground floor, though, and it was generally considered worth the mild annoyance it caused, as it enabled the residents to be sure that the occupant of the laboratory was in there and not out making some sort of trouble. This was a Good Thing.

In the midst of the laboratory, surrounded by blaring speakers, three networked computers, two giant monitors, six CD-ROMs and reams and reams of printer paper, an apparently young man with waist-length white hair sat in a swivel chair, reading printouts. Every so often he would glance up at one of the computers, and without him physically touching it in any way, the mouse or keyboard would respond, bringing him into a new view of his data or opening up more files. It would have been an eerie sight for anyone not used to it, but none of the household's residents would have blinked an eye.

For the first time in quite a while, Joseph was happy. He was making good progress, which was more than could be said for the rest of his life. There was a lot he didn't remember, and he kept having to refer to Xavier, McCoy or McTaggert's notes, on CD-ROM or off the school's network. But overall he was amazed at how much of this stuff he retained. Since he couldn't remember learning any of it, it was as if he'd sprung full-blown into the world with a working knowledge of genetics, psionics, and mutant physiology. Unlike his mutant powers, where he was constantly being informed how far short he was falling of the potential he'd realized once, no one critiqued his scientific knowledge. Hell, no one but Hank McCoy could follow what he was doing, a fact that filled him with an illicit thrill of pride. He wasn't supposed to take pride in being superior to his fellow man, or his fellow mutants for that matter, but, well, he did. And there was so little he had to feel superior about, or even to feel good about, he insisted to himself that it was harmless. It wasn't as if pride in his scientific prowess was going to make him forget he was a murderous terrorist, after all. 

Perhaps, he thought, he would give up the superheroics entirely and go into research full-time. Certainly he'd made more progress with this project in a month than Charles Xavier had in years-- which probably reflected only that Xavier had had other responsibilities and Joseph, for the most part, didn't, so he shouldn't get too happy about it, but it did imply that he was good at this. And while obviously the scientific knowledge was a skill Magneto had had, otherwise Joseph couldn't have it, it wasn't what Magneto was known for. It was rather hard to want to train his abilities to their fullest extent when those abilities had made him world-famous as a madman. On the other hand, if Joseph gave up using his powers entirely except in small-scale ways and plunged into research of some kind, couldn't he do more good for mutantkind in the long run? Every time he went out and tried to use his powers to help people he practically caused a riot. 

The door opened behind him. Quickly Joseph activated the screen saver to hide his work, under the suspicion of who had just entered the room. He spun in the chair and confirmed his suspicions. It was Rogue, looking quite beautiful today with her hair artfully tousled, tight jeans and a T-shirt. For some reason he always thought she looked much nicer in civilian clothes than skin-tight spandex. Maybe he just wasn't used to this whole superhero thing yet. He still hadn't gotten over the fact that he used to wear a pot on his head.

"All work and no play, sugar," she said cheerily. "Come on out. It's a beautiful day."

Inwardly he sighed. Rogue was always trying to get him to socialize, and it was never anything other than painful. His lack of knowledge of American culture would have been awkward, but overcomeable, were it not for the fact that everyone but Rogue hated him. "I'd rather not. I have a lot to do."

"Like what?" She attempted to tug him out of his swivel chair. Feeling obstinate, Joseph locked himself into the chair and the chair to the metal pipes underneath the floor. "Come on. It's such a nice day, you can't possibly want to spend the whole day in here reading about-- what are you reading about?" She picked up a printout.

"Just some things," Joseph said hastily. "Nothing to be worried about."

Rogue scowled at him. "You trying to hide stuff from me, sugar?"

"Don't be silly, Rogue. Everything I do is logged, and Hank accesses the log frequently to make sure I'm not doing anything illicit. No, I'm trying to keep my research secret because it's a surprise."

"A surprise? What kind of surprise?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be awfully surprising, now would it?"

She laughed. "This isn't like Spring Surprise, is it?"

"Spring Surprise?"

"It was a Monty Python sketch. It's a chocolate, and when you bite down on it, springs jump out and pop through your cheeks. Now that would be surprising."

"That's disgusting."

"Isn't it? I love Monty Python." She set the paperwork down. "If Hank says your surprise is okay, then I guess I'll wait for it. But it better be a good surprise, now you've gone and got my hopes up."

"I would hope so. Now, may I please return to my work?"

"You may not. Come on, lazy buns." She tried to tug him out of the chair again. "No fair using magnetism."

"Would you rather I used Krazy Glue?"

"Hon, you get out of this chair right now or I'm gonna tug so hard I'll dislocate your shoulder."

"When you put it that way." Joseph stood. "What am I being roped into this time?"

"We're trying to get together a softball game-- what're you making that face for?"

"I hate softball." They started up the stairs outside Joseph's lab. 

"You never played it, how do you know you hate it?"

"I hate it because I've never played it. I cannot possibly look anything other than a fool trying to play a game I don't know with a handful of people who've been playing it all their lives, and the X-Men are already too eager to make me look a fool. Besides, no one wants someone who tried to kill them muscling in on their sport, and besides that--"

"And besides that, you're stuffy and you hate all sports."

"Not true at all. I'm a big fan of football."

Her eyes goggled. "_Football?_"

"Yes, the sport that involves using your feet to kick a ball? I'm told it's popular here in the States? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I never imagined you for the football type. I mean, slamming into people, trying to dislocate their shoulders so you can grab the ball-- you never struck me as someone to get that down and physical."

"What are you talking about? You can't grab the ball in football. That's why it's called 'foot' ball. Because you use your feet. Logical, no?"

"That ain't any kind of football I ever heard of--"

By now they had reached the outside, where a number of X-Men were milling about. "He means soccer," Psylocke said. For once, she was dressed sensibly, in a royal blue running suit instead of the painful-looking and miniscule costume she generally wore.

"Is _that_ what you're talking about?"

"I don't know. Is soccer a game that involves kicking a ball or striking it with your head, but never touching it with your hands?"

"That's soccer."

"Then what's football?"

"A very confusing game that only Americans truly understand," Psylocke said. "Sensibly, you'd think a game that involves feet would be called football, and one that involves hands would not be. However, in America football involves picking up the ball and running with it, and soccer doesn't."

"Ah." Joseph nodded. "Now I know what Sister Maria meant when she forbade the boys to play 'American football.' I always thought it was just some slightly more violent variant of the sport."

"Why are we discussing soccer? Or football, for that matter?" Psylocke asked.

"Joseph wants to play that instead of softball."

"I didn't say that. All I said was that I do like some sports, and soccer is the one I like." It was also the only organized sport he knew how to play, but he wasn't going to say so in front of Psylocke.

"I think that's an excellent idea, actually. I've gotten terribly tired of softball." She laughed. "There are times when I truly miss England, and the fact that there's no real soccer here is one of the things that annoys me. I was a girls' school champion soccer player in middle school."

"So why don't we all play soccer instead?" Rogue asked.

"Hey, are you people trying to sneak a game change past us?" Bobby Drake asked. "_I_ want to play softball."

"Then do so, by all means. Rogue is simply trying to get me to play, and I don't like softball."

"_I_ want to play soccer," Psylocke said. "Softball has gotten very old."

By now there were several X-Men paying attention to the conversation, making Joseph uncomfortable. He truly hadn't intended to start a fight over what game to play when he hadn't actually intended on playing at all. "I wouldn't mind either way," Sam Guthrie said shyly. "I mean, me and Berto used to play soccer all the time. I wouldn't know as I'd say I was ever any good at it, but I wouldn't mind it for a change, if that's what Miss Betsy wants to play."

"Oh, come on, Sam old boy. _Soccer?_ You want to play boring old _soccer_ when we could be playing the greatest game on Earth?"

"Actually," Scott said, "that isn't a bad idea." Joseph's eyes widened in surprise. Clearly Scott must have no idea the original soccer discussion came from him-- if he'd known it was Joseph's idea, he'd never support it. "We do play softball a lot, and it's bound to get a little stale. No, I have an idea. Who's playing?"

"What are we playing?" Warren asked.

"Soccer. Betsy suggested it, and I think it's a good idea. Here's my plan. The ball must be touched by feet or head, no hands, no powers. However, anyone who wants can use their powers to get into range to contact the ball. So flying is allowed, acrobatics are allowed--" he looked at Hank-- "ice barriers in front of the goal are not allowed--" Bobby had the grace to look sheepish. "And no blowing up the ball." This was directed at Gambit.

"That was an accident," Gambit protested.

Scott ignored that. "So. Who's playing?"

"Ideally, everyone should. Soccer takes larger teams than softball," Psylocke said.

"Yes, but if there are people who don't want to play--"

"I will not," Bishop announced. "Someone needs to remain on guard."

"How about real football?" Logan suggested, grinning. "Ain't played _that_ in a while."

"No, too violent. We wouldn't dare allow powers at all."

"I have never played this soccer," Ororo said. "It seems strange, after all the years I've been in America, that I would not have experienced such a thing. I'm willing to play, if I can be shown the rules."

"Simple, Stormy. There's a goal, and there's a goal--" Gambit pointed at either end of the playing field-- "and one team, they try to get the ball in the other team's goal. Only the goalie allowed to touch the ball with his hands. And Gambit not allowed to blow up the ball, fearless leader say so."

"Those are all the rules? They seem simple enough."

"Vastly oversimplified, but it'll do," Psylocke said.

"Well, I'm in," Jean said.

Within rapid succession, the rest of the X-Men agreed to join the game, with the exception of Bishop, who was reluctantly shanghaied into being referee.

"All right, we've got twelve players," Scott said. "First of all, for the duration of this exercise I'm going to assign team captains. I haven't played soccer since I was a kid and Storm's never played, so I need people who know their soccer to be team leaders here. Psylocke, you're one. Who's up for two? Logan?"

"Count me out. I ain't played in twenty years."

Rogue nudged Joseph. "Go on."

"Are you insane? They'll never accept--"

"Rogue?" Scott interrupted.

"Just wanted to say that Joseph here's a big fan of the game. The whole thing was actually his idea in the first place."

"That will surely win people over," Joseph muttered.

"Oh, really?" Angel asked frostily. "Betsy, I thought it was _yours_."

"It was. Joseph said he preferred soccer to softball; I'm the one that argued we should actually play it instead," Betsy replied coolly.

"I don't wish to impose--"

"How recently have you played?" Scott asked.

"About-- mm, eight months ago, at the orphanage."

"Sam?"

"Longer ago than that."

Scott paused a moment. "Well. That makes Joseph our second team leader, then." His expression under the glasses was unreadable.

"Scott, are you out of your mind?" Bobby asked. 

"There's a big difference between a friendly game of soccer, and trying to take over the world. Isn't there, Joseph?"

Joseph read Scott's tone as challenging. Not one to back down from a challenge, he replied evenly, "As I recall nothing about the latter, I couldn't say. But common sense would argue in your favor."

"This isn't one of your better ideas, Scott," Warren said. Of course, it was the original X-Men that raised the most objections. The ones that hated him most. Joseph still wasn't sure why Scott _had_ picked him.

"Oh, I don't know. If he's half as good at tactics as he used to be, I think he'll give Psylocke's team a serious run for their money."

"That isn't what I meant--"

"Warren, either we're all X-Men or we aren't. I have the same issues you do, but I'm going to give a job to the best qualified X-Man, whoever he is, otherwise there isn't much point to having him on the team." Warren looked like he wanted to take exception to that, too, but Scott overrode him. "It's settled. Psylocke, your Blue Team will have you, Jean, Rogue, Beast, Iceman and Cannonball. Am I overstepping to say Beast's probably your best choice for goalie?"

"Not at all. Given the rules about flying-- and ice barriers--" she smiled at Bobby-- "Hank was my first choice."

"Good. Gold Team is Joseph, Storm, Angel, Gambit, Wolverine and me."

Joseph did the math. Team leader with Angel, Gambit, Wolverine and Scott himself on the team? Either Scott was setting him up, or this was supposed to prove something. And then he noticed the rest of the roster's ramifications.

"No fair," Gambit protested. "This roster, it sounds like girls against the boys, and we all know they defeat us with their charm. All we got is Stormy-- all the other lovely ladies over there."

"I'm breaking the teams based on who can fly, and other factors," Scott said blandly. He didn't fool Joseph for a second. It was cleverly done-- breaking up every couple, ensuring every team had an equal number of high-powered fliers, lower-powered fliers and agile goalie candidates. The fact that it also left Joseph in charge of four people who hated him-- Angel and Scott himself because they were first-generation X-Men and seemed to have been specifically trained to hate him, Gambit who resented his friendship with Rogue, and Wolverine, who seemed to have more personal reasons that Joseph had never quite figured out-- was probably gravy. Well. He'd just have to see how professional the X-Men really were when it came to the crunch. At least he had Storm on his side-- if he couldn't have Rogue, she was the next best thing.

"Really, Gambit, from your talk one would think you'd consider the roster an advantage," Joseph said, matching Scott's blandness. Time to nip this childishness in the bud. Gambit couldn't be on the same side as Rogue? Too damn bad. "Isn't it true that all women are supposed to swoon at your feet?"

Gambit scowled. "Better than running away from me in terror, non?"

That one stung, though Joseph really couldn't say why. Sister Maria hadn't run from him in terror. Nor had Rogue. "You're goalie," he said, ignoring the gibe. "I don't think Scott will allow the use of your quarterstaff--"

"No. Powers, not weapons."

"--so we're dependent on your agility." He hesitated for a moment, then grinned. "Try not to blow up the ball."

"Harp a lot on a man's mistakes for someone with your past, don't you?" Gambit said sourly.

So Gambit could joke with Scott about it, but not with Joseph. Useful to know. "Very well, I'll make a pact with you. I won't go insane and try to kill you, and you don't blow up the ball, all right?"

Several people, including Rogue, snickered, while Storm looked disapproving. "That is hardly in the best of taste, Joseph."

She was right, of course; it was wrong to joke about his past. "Sorry. I'm sure you'll do well, anyway, Remy." He turned away before he could put his foot in his mouth again. "What are we using for goals, anyway?"

It turned out that there were no soccer goals in storage, so it fell to Joseph and Jean to make them-- Joseph doing the metal skeleton of the goal baskets, using the supply of abandoned cars he kept in a large shed on the property as raw material, and Jean weaving some rope from storage into the netting around the baskets. When Jean was done, the two of them each picked up a goal and took it to their end of the field. "And I warn you," Beast said jovially, though with a slight edge under it, "that if I detect _any_ outside forces influencing the goal basket, I _will_ call foul."

"I don't cheat, Hank," Joseph said, and grinned. "My team hardly _needs_ to cheat for us to defeat you."

"I've heard such boastful words from you before," Psylocke said. Though the words themselves might well be something she'd said to Magneto in battle, her tone indicated she was joking with him.

"Yeah, but this time he's got me on his side," Logan said, apparently willing to let bygones be bygones temporarily for the sake of winning the game. "Watch yourself, Betts."

"Watch _yourself_, Wolvie," Rogue said cheerily. "Blue Team's going to kick your butt so hard it ends up pointing backwards."

Bishop spoke impatiently. "If you'd all quit insulting each other, I can call the game to begin."

"By all means. Gold Team, let us stand ready."

"Blue Team is ready."

"Very well-- _go_!"

Logan had the ball before the syllable finished.

What ensued was the most stressful, as well as the most entertaining, game Joseph had ever played. In the orphanage it had taken some doing to get him to play at all-- he kept having nightmares in which he played soccer against slavering beasts, and if he ever faltered they'd fall on him and fling him into a pit of flame-- but once the kids had talked him into it, of course he was still playing with children. So it was his job to keep the game fair and make sure all the kids had a fair shot as much as it was to win. He couldn't unleash his natural competitive instincts on children. Or adult humans, for that matter, though he'd never played them.

This was entirely different. He had to keep track of his teammates, of the ball-- which was reinforced for super strength, but still had no magnetic parts-- and the opposition, in a game where six out of twelve players could fly and dirty tricks were par for the course. One such dirty trick was the time he landed rapidly to try to intercept the ball and found himself skidding on an ice slick that hadn't been there a second before he landed. As Bobby Drake grinned maliciously and skated toward the ball, a strong and very localized wind blew him backward onto his butt-- as well as blowing Joseph over, who hadn't quite caught his balance yet from the skid-- and Ororo landed gracefully and kicked the ball to Scott. After that Joseph simply didn't land, levitating a quarter inch off the ground whenever he needed to be there to get the ball. Though other fliers, such as Jean and Rogue, were less well braced when levitating and were therefore subject to being knocked over by gusts of wind or a short aggressive Canadian, when Betsy attempted to use her ninja skills to knock Joseph away from the ball it became obvious that his ability to lock himself into place in relation to the Earth's magnetic field made him _better_ braced when levitating than when on foot.

It was fun, and confusing, and exhilarating, and occasionally downright silly-- at one point when he attempted to make a goal, Beast simply grabbed his floating legs as he descended and held them so he couldn't pull free or kick the ball. Of course Joseph could have freed himself by shocking Hank, but he considered that out of bounds for a friendly game. He couldn't touch the ball with his magnetism without violating the rules, and while he could actually _reach_ it with his hands, he couldn't use them either, and couldn't quite twist enough to get his head into position to use. Before he could extricate his legs from Beast's bear hug, Cannonball slammed headfirst into the ball, knocking it all the way across the playing field and plowing into the ground next to them, covering Hank and Joseph with dirt. Later, when Hank tried the same trick on Ororo, she simply rained on him hard enough that he couldn't keep hold, and he smelled of wet fur for the rest of the game. Despite her inexperience at soccer, clearly Ororo played to win. Nevertheless, Joseph pointed out that this was a tactical error, as the rain on top of the dirt Sam had kicked up left the enemy goal enmired in mud, and required anyone making a goal from the ground to slog through it. 

His players were not nearly as difficult to manage as he'd originally feared. All of them were good at working in teams, all of them had worked with each other and the opponents frequently, and while most weren't that familiar with soccer, they knew the game well enough not to make fouls. Joseph had to give directions very rarely-- which was good, since he was up in the air most of the time and even his voice didn't carry _that_ well (not even when he did the Magneto voice and he didn't think that would go over well, so if he could avoid it he would.) And when he did, they listened to him. By the time they'd been playing almost forty minutes, Gold Team had a three-goal lead over Blue.

When a kick from Rogue sent the ball nearly into orbit, Joseph chased after it, easily outracing Jean and Rogue herself, and pulled a silly stunt of his own. A massive static electricity charge to his hair utterly wrecked his neat ponytail, but inclined the ball to stick to his head. Technically he was not using his magnetic powers on the ball per se, merely taking advantage of the laws of physics rather than bending them. He began a rapid descent with the ball balanced on his head, nestled into his hair, which had poofed in a rather alarming fashion from the static electricity. Rogue appeared, kicked the ball off his head, and the chase was on all the way down.

By the time he was 200 feet above the playing field, he had the ball, removed from Rogue, pinned securely between his knees-- or at least securely until one of Rogue's strafing runs actually connected. He scanned the field below by instinct-- and detected something startling. Joseph sent a more detailed probe against the thing he detected--

--and electromagnetic static fed back at him through his probe, drowning his senses and disrupting his own field, and his powers with it. He dropped like a rock, ball and all.

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Next: Joseph discovers that a mental probe is no fun at all.


	3. Chapter 2: In which Joseph discovers he ...

****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 2

Rotating Disclaimer: _Yes, this is part two of "Journeyman of Magnetism", the first story in the Twin Poles series, the series that sets out to try to do right every single Marvel cliche. Except for Summerses. Mama don't 'low no Summerses round here._

Marvel owns 'em all, except for the ones it doesn't, and only they are allowed to make money off them. This part contains some disturbing and graphic imagery. Yeah, you thought it was gonna be a laugh romp when you read the first part, right? Life is funny like that. :-)

***

"_Joseph!_" The voice was distant. Desperately Joseph fought to regain his bearings, to slow his fall, but the feedback had stunned him and his powers were sluggish to respond. He felt Rogue catch him. By the time she'd landed he was mostly recovered, enough to levitate himself out of her arms and stand up straight, or mostly straight, anyhow.

"Joseph!" It was Storm. "What happened?"

He probed again. Nothing there. "I'm... not entirely sure," he confessed reluctantly, walking somewhat shakily over to the edge of the field, where he'd detected it. Still nothing.

"Give me a report," Scott demanded, arriving at a dead run and somewhat out of breath.

"I sensed a powerful magnetic field, right around here," Joseph began, hesitantly. They were outside the game now, and he was no longer an expert, no longer a team leader-- once again, now, the mistrusted weak link.

"How long had it been there?" Bishop demanded.

"I have no idea. It was-- I don't know how better to describe it-- it was folded in on itself. Focused in one area, nothing projecting outward, so it would have evaded my detection indefinitely if I hadn't scanned the entire field while I was coming down." He reached out and waved his hand through the area, as if expecting to encounter something invisible. Nothing met his touch. "When I tried to probe it, it sent-- static at me. As if, for a moment, it overloaded my own ability to detect and control magnetic fields with a charge too great, too rapidly changing, for me to process it. It disrupted my powers completely for a moment."

"Are you all right?" Rogue asked. 

"I seem to be, yes." Except he had a terrible headache.

"Where did you detect the field?" Bishop asked.

"Right here."

Logan loped over and sniffed. "Ain't nothing been here but you, Joey."

"Are you sure?"

"You sure you detected a magnetic field?"

"I could hardly be wrong about that."

"Me neither. Scents don't lie. There was anything other than you over here, even a robot, and I'd know it."

"How the heck is this possible?" Bobby asked. "You're supposed to be the Master of Magnetism, aren't you? So how could something generating a magnetic field hide from you, much less nail you when you caught it?"

"I never titled myself Master of Magnetism," Joseph snapped. "That was Magneto, and if you had failed to observe, I am not Magneto-- not in the ways that matter. I do not share his ideology, his insanity-- nor, unfortunately, his skill. All it would take would be a wielder of electromagnetic energies with more skill than _I_ have, not more skill than Magneto had." He considered. "That being said, I still don't understand it either. Magneto I may not be, but I'm not wholly incompetent either. Polaris could not have done this, and I know of no one else."

"Quasar?" Jean asked.

"Why would he bother to spy on us?" Beast asked. "I've met the lad, and he seems a straightforward soul."

"Why didn't any of us see the whatever it was?" Bobby asked.

"It was bending light rays around itself," Joseph answered. "Had we been looking straight at it, and something had moved behind it, we'd have observed a distortion. But out here, nothing would likely have moved behind the field."

"Could you do that?" Bishop asked.

"Certainly, it's a simple trick." Bishop scowled; apparently that wasn't what he'd wanted to hear.

"I'm going to check Cerebro's logs," Psylocke said.

"Good idea. Joseph, I want you to keep scanning. Tell us if there's anything unusual. Jean, you detect anything?" Scott asked.

"Already looked, lover, and no. I got a distress flare from Joseph when he fell, but nothing from the surrounding area."

"Well, keep a lookout out. That goes for everyone. Let's go see what Psylocke has for us."

* * *

Inside the mansion, the entire complement of X-Men trooped warily into what had once been Charles Xavier's study. Psylocke sat with Cerebro on her head, looking over the logs and shaking her head.

"Nothing is present now," she said. "And the only thing here that's remotely suspicious is a double blip for Joseph."

"What's that mean, a double blip?" Gambit asked. "If there be two of Joseph, I figure that sound suspicious enough, non?"

"It _might_ have significance, but it most likely doesn't. Cerebro is powerful enough to detect mutants hundreds of miles away, and with that kind of sensitivity you get false positives. Powerful mutants in close proximity to Cerebro often show up in duplicate or even triplicate." She glanced at Joseph. "You used to duplicate all the time when you were here last."

"Of course, the last time someone showed up in duplicate, it was you, Betsy," Hank said. "And indeed, there _were_ two of you. Can we rule out the possibility that somehow, there were two of Joseph?"

"A Magneto-bot?" Scott said. "Magneto claimed that it was a robot duplicate that worked with Mesmero; could there be other such duplicates running around?"

"How could you build a robot duplicate of me? Wouldn't channeling the power required destroy the robot's systemry?"

"It can be done," Storm said, turning toward Joseph. "We have never encountered a robot duplicate of Magneto-- we, meaning those of us who joined the X-Men later-- but we did encounter duplicates of all of us. Including Shadowcat, whose power disrupts electronics. So clearly it can be done."

"I tell you there wasn't any flaming robot," Logan growled. "Even the best ones have a funny scent to them. I'd've smelled that."

"Besides, I may not have Magneto's skill, but I'm sure I could outdo a robot duplicate of him," Joseph said, slightly miffed that this was even being taken seriously as a possibility. "They can't be very intelligent."

"Do not be so certain. The Doom bots we've encountered have been terribly convincing," Storm said. "Of course, I suspect Magneto was less sophisticated a programmer than Doom."

"Is there any possibility it's something Magneto himself left the last time he was here?" Jean asked. 

Joseph shook his head. He'd never been clear on the timeline-- he knew Magneto had worked with the X-Men once, since they often spoke of him "betraying" them and he knew he'd been friends with Charles Xavier, but he wasn't certain how many years ago that had been. Still, it was impossible. "That was not a permanent alteration to the local magnetic fields. Something was there, generating it."

"What about Onslaught?" Scott asked. "He had Magneto's powers."

"Great. Another enemy returning from the dead," Warren muttered.

"Unlikely. Onslaught had a very different psionic signature," Psylocke said. "Let me show you." She pulled up the two signatures, Joseph's and Onslaught's. "As you can see, while Onslaught did have Magneto's magnetic powers, the fact that he also shared Professor Xavier's telepathic powers makes his signature very different to Cerebro. In comparison--" she pulled up a third signature-- "this is Magneto. Notice it is identical to Joseph's. And this is Polaris, and you'll note how far removed hers is from any of the others'."

"Could Joseph himself be the source of the anomalous field?" Scott asked slowly.

Joseph scowled. "I don't see what motive you could conceivably think I have for putting on a ruse like this."

"No, not a ruse." He turned to Jean. "If the real Magneto were still present in Joseph's brain-- or if some element of Onslaught had survived, and was hiding there, without Joseph's knowledge-- and that second consciousness had attacked Joseph with his own power, could that have caused a double blip?"

Jean nodded. "Definitely. You'd have two of the same mind-- or what looks to Cerebro like the same mind, anyway-- using the same physical set of powers twice. Given that Onslaught without the Professor _is_ Magneto, essentially, or Magneto's dark side at any rate, I don't think Cerebro could make the distinction if either Magneto or Onslaught was present in Joseph's mind."

"But I sensed something _outside_ myself," Joseph protested.

"Of course you did," Jean said. "Joseph, do you know anything about brain disorders?"

"...no." Safe answer-- if he knew, he didn't know what he knew. 

"Apply an electric current to the right part of the brain, and the person thinks they're hearing voices, or eating foods. Stroke can lead people to think half their body doesn't exist, is alien to them. If you subconsciously sensed a presence in your brain, without the training a telepath has in separating self from other, you might naturally have believed the presence to be outside yourself."

"But in a specific place?"

"That could certainly happen," Jean said. 

"Why does this theory disturb you so badly, Joseph?" Hank asked. "Surely you understand that, if it were the case that Onslaught or the original Magneto were yet concealed within your brain as uninvited house guests, we would not hold _you_ personally culpable. Everything possible would be done to humanely exorcise the entity in question without harming you."

"I'm not afraid of being harmed," Joseph said sharply. It was a lie-- the thought of anyone, even allies, in his head made his skin crawl. But the thought of enemies hiding there was worse. "It's just-- I don't believe it. I definitely sensed something out at the edges of the playing field, and it attacked me magnetically, not telepathically, when I sent a magnetic, not telepathic, probe at it."

"But Joseph, that might just be your perception," Jean explained patiently. "Your mind subconsciously translating the intrusion, your response, and the attack into terms you can understand."

"We can't take the chance," Scott said. "You understand that, don't you?"

His voice was gentle, and that was what really scared Joseph. Scott had never made any secret of hating and distrusting Joseph. He was professional about it-- if Joseph was the best candidate for a job Scott wouldn't pass him over, which was how Joseph had gotten to be Gold Team leader in the soccer game-- but this gentle tone was all wrong from him. It meant Joseph was, in Scott's opinion, in deadly danger, and to be treated like a dying man rather than like a potential enemy. Which meant that if Joseph resisted the mental probe-- or if he submitted, did have houseguests in his mind, and they couldn't be purged-- that Scott would have him killed, Joseph thought.

But it didn't matter, did it? These people were his only friends, teammates who'd taken him in in his confusion despite the fact that he'd tried to kill them all several times in the past he couldn't remember. He owed them too deeply, and if his life was the price of protecting them, so be it. He took a deep breath. "Yes, I understand. What do you want me to do?"

"Submit to a mental probe," Scott said. "If you're clean, then great. If some other entity is in your head, I want your cooperation in purging it."

"You'll have it."

"Sit down," Jean said gently. Joseph obeyed, choosing a large, stuffed chair. He had to try to relax.

Something began. It was like an annoying tapping on his skull, or tugging at his hair except under the scalp, or something. He had a sudden vivid mental image of his head submerged in maggots, squirming and writhing and trying to eat their way into his head. The headache he'd had since the attack intensified, and Joseph shifted in his seat, turning his head back and forth in a useless attempt to flee the sensations. Something utterly disgusting and alien, like a slimy tentacle or an insect, bit suddenly into him in a place underneath his skull, and instinctively he responded, flinging up metaphoric iron plates around his brain to protect it from the squirming creatures. The sensation stopped.

"Joseph, you're shielding," Jean said. "You have to drop your shields."

With great reluctance, he let go of the imaginary iron plates. The squirming returned. "No, Joseph. All the way."

"I don't know how!" He put his hands to his head. "It feels like you-- you're--"

Jean sighed. "Then I don't know if this will work."

"Magneto _was_ capable of voluntarily lowering his shields," Storm said. "He did so on the Beyonder's battleworld, in order to lend strength to Professor Xavier. I had the impression it was very difficult for him, however."

"And that was before the Professor attacked him," Jean pointed out. "And in any case I'm neither as powerful nor as close to Magneto as the Professor w-- is."

"Perhaps I should do it," Psylocke said. "A quick surgical strike to open the defenses--"

"And if there _is_ something in Joseph's head, it'll likely respond to that with deadly force, and Joseph himself will be too stunned by your psychic knife to hold it back." Jean shook her head. "It could work, but it's risky."

"I would far prefer to attempt to lower my own shields than have them torn open," Joseph said, trying to keep his voice even. If there was anything worse than having his mind invaded, it would be having it assaulted the way Psylocke's attack would. "If I fail, perhaps Psylocke can be a last resort."

"That's reasonable," Psylocke said.

Rogue took his hand in her gloved on and squeezed lightly. "You need moral support or anything, Joseph, I'm here."

He smiled wanly. "That's quite all right. This phobia of mental intrusion is just that, a fear, and I won't let fear rule me. I _will_ lower my shields." He released her hand and turned back to Jean. "Have you any advice?"

"Just try to relax as much as you can. You're among friends."

__

I'm among friends who tore my mind open and scattered the shards of my self to the winds, and who will kill me if what they find in my mind is not to their liking, he thought, and forced it down. Magneto had been a monster, and they'd done what they had to do. As for this time, he was sure they wouldn't kill him except as a last resort, if for no other reason than their long friendship with Rogue.

The squirming maggots on his head sensation started again. Joseph tried closing his eyes, but that made matters worse. He opened them and focused on Rogue, needing something to distract himself as he forced himself to breathe evenly and deeply. Don't think about squirming slimy creatures eating his brain. Look at Rogue. Think about how good she's been to him, think about how much he wanted to help her, think about how he cared for her. Concentrate on how beautiful she is, not on the thing invading his brain.

"Still there, Joseph. Can you let them down further?"

It wasn't maggots. He knew the power of visualization, and tried to change his. It was Rogue's fingers, naked fingers stroking the bare skin of his head because he'd succeeded, he'd cured her, and she could touch him, and it _wasn't_ slimy and sickening and chitinous, it wasn't an invasion, it was wanted, desired. He held the visualization for a moment, trying to turn the imagery into something pleasurable and desirable, tapping into his own sexual frustration. Then the image twisted on him, and a tactile image came out of nowhere of a body on him, much larger than his, pressing him down, touching him in places that made his skin crawl and _no!_ it wasn't that, he had to make it change, had to invoke something more compelling to shut the horror out-- oh god, was he going to have to sit here and actually fantasize about having sex with Rogue in order to get rid of the persistent imagery of rape and violation Jean's slow assault on his shields was causing? Right here, in front of all these people, with Rogue herself watching and Jean halfway inside his mind? He couldn't do that, he _couldn't_--

--and then a sensation like his head was made of glass and it was breaking, liquid brain oozing out like ichor, and he screamed--

__

++/lullaby soothing gentle arms rocking/ it's all right it's all right I'm in ++

Oh dear god that was so much worse, like the maggots were now crawling _through_ his brain, leaving slime trails everywhere. Nausea rose in his throat. The constant stream of soothing nonsense Jean was sending at him as she probed was the only thing that kept him from breaking, from flinging his shields back up and trying to flee. He could _feel_ her touching his memories, fondling them, like a giant dripping slimy tongue slobbering all over his most private places. Joseph heard himself whimpering, felt Rogue's real-life gloved hand stroking his arm, and felt a horrible sick humiliation. He was being raped in public, and they could all see his reaction, his humiliation and fear and disgust. He couldn't be more exposed if he stripped naked in front of them all. That in fact would hardly bother him in comparison to this.

++_almost done I'm almost done you're doing so well just hang on for a little bit_++

She touched memories, evoking them in chains. Ghosts flitted through his head, insubstantial things. There was a woman, and he loved her, but she'd hurt him and there was a fire and a little girl burning and the sick stench of burned flesh skeleton men all around him in rags and he was one of them, his hands on a small child's naked body, limp and dead, tossing it into flames and the bile wanted to rise but the hunger so cold so hungry so scared and the guns fired at him and he burned his parents screamed falling into darkness with his sister's hand in one and father's in the other dreaming in the darkness a woman reading to him and he sat on a man's lap while the man showed him a beautiful rock and talked about asteroids someday he was going to live there he was going to be an astronaut and Mother ruffled his hair "you'll write from Mars when you get there won't you? and come home for Yom Kippur?" and a girl older than him laughed "that's our Erik, living in space already" and she was kicking a boy "don't call my brother a bastard!" and he didn't know what it was but it was bad so he waded into the fight because he couldn't hide behind a girl and she was off to school with her books and he wanted to follow her and Father "in two years you'll go" and he said "I want to learn everything, Father, everything there is to know"

blank

blank

++_/concern/ Joseph, do you see it?_++

__

/shaking fear remembered trauma remembered love/ a blank wall-- what does it mean?

++_/determination/ you're hiding something back there-- if there's anything it'll be there_++

__

then you have to go in? /shaking terror no! determination anger i will not let fear rule me/

++_yes /forgive please/ this will hurt_++

A membrane in his head tearing open-- a door, torn off its hinges-- a wall smashed down--

He lies on a table immobile no thought no emotion only peaceful empty acceptance of existence and a red-haired woman bends over him, her hand touches his naked chest and it's like acid, like drilling into his body, no thought in his mind but pain and fear, he cannot fight and he has no mind or words to plead with and he can do nothing but scream--

Joseph screamed.

* * *

"Don't hurt him!" The voice came from very far away. Something held him immobile, and he struggled weakly, but his limbs felt so heavy and he couldn't reach his powers. "He didn't mean to!"

"If he's hurt Jeannie I'll kill him," a voice growled, full of menace.

"I'm all right. I'm all right. Just a little shaken."

"Jean, what did he--"

"I touched a nerve. Joseph, can you hear me?"

His head hurt so much. It felt like the outside of it had been someone's punching bag and the inside had been scraped raw with a dull knife. Something in his mind was screaming with terror, get up, get up and prove you're all right or they'll kill you, if you let them see weakness you'll burn. Joseph forced his eyes open. "What happened?" he tried to ask, but his voice slurred to mush, as if he were drunk. He'd have to do better than that. He marshaled all his resources and forced his voice not to slur. "What happened?"

"You went berserk and threw Jean across the room," Rogue said, her face coming into focus a few inches above his own. "I had to hit you to put you down."

So that explained the outside of his head, at least. And his body felt a mass of bruises. He wondered if she'd actually had to hit him that hard. "Is-- is she all right?"

"I'm fine, Joseph. I was alert for any reaction like that from you, so I got my own shields up in time."

The memory she'd touched rose up again, filling him with visceral terror and remembered pain. He tried to force it away. "What-- what was that?"

"You don't know?"

"That's-- all I see. Who _is_ she?" Anger gave him strength. He sat up slowly, mindful of his head. "What did she do to me?"

"Joseph, I don't know. That one isn't connected to anything else inside your head."

"What are you talking about?" Scott asked.

Jean took a deep breath. "Well, the good news is that Joseph is clean. Totally. Not only is there no evidence of another presence in his head, but Magneto's memories just aren't there." She shook her head. "It's really odd, actually. There's a number of disconnected images, mostly relating to Magneto's childhood and adolescence, a very little bit from beyond that-- some especially traumatic images and a number of memories of having had memories. That is, Joseph has no memory of the actual event, but remembers remembering it, so a kind of summary exists. The only coherent chunks are from early childhood, before the camps-- everything after that is disconnected and interleaved with nightmare imagery. And sparse, very sparse. I'm not even detecting a lot of afterechoes of memories that used to be there. In a memory erasure this complete, I'd expect to find billions of memory fragments and resonances from throughout the life, and they're just not there. There's absolutely nothing at all from his career as Magneto, barely anything from his adult life." She looked over at Joseph. "Magneto is dead. Joseph can't possibly ever turn into him again-- not to say Joseph couldn't go bad, but if he ever does, it'll be Joseph going bad, not Magneto resurfacing. Magneto isn't there."

He should be grateful for that. He never wanted to be Magneto again, and from the brief fragments Jean had made him remember briefly, he didn't want to remember having been Magneto, either; that life seemed to contain nothing but pain. And yet he felt an obscure sense of grief. Magneto was dead. He had never known the man, never could. To the best of his knowledge, Magneto had been a monster-- and yet he recalled those flickering images of the boy with his family, the older sister teasing him and the father teaching him and the mother reading to him, and he felt a terrible grief for that boy-- both for what he'd gone through, to make him into what he later became, and because the man he'd grown up into was dead, and Joseph would never recover any more of him than the fragments he had now.

"That's great!" Rogue said. "That's really wonderful news!"

Rogue, dancing on Magneto's grave. Joseph shoved that image out of his mind. Why did he feel so horrible? So angry at his dear friends, so grief-stricken at the nonexistence of his personal demon? He actually felt like he might break down crying, or attack someone, equally counterproductive activities. "What about that other thing?" he said harshly. "If you are so knowledgeable about the contents of my mind, can you tell me what that means?"

"What what means?" Bobby asked.

"None of this has yet explained why Joseph went berserk," Storm said severely.

"Yes. That's what Joseph is asking about." _Continuing to talk about me as if I'm not here. The invisible mutant. Magnetic cellophane._ "There was a repressed memory, something buried behind layers of psychic shielding. I thought that if any other entity was in there, that's where it would be hiding, so I probed that area. What I found--" She hesitated. "It was a mindless, visceral memory, something composed entirely of sensation, no thought. Probably something that happened when he was in a coma. It's an image of him being in-- perhaps a laboratory of some sort-- and a red-haired woman touching him, and pain, as if just her skin touching his causes agony. There's nothing else, and Joseph doesn't recognize the woman-- and I don't either. The memory doesn't appear to connect to anything else."

"So why was he repressing it?" Scott asked.

"I don't know. It _was_ very painful."

"Yes, but so were a lot of things in Magneto's life, and he didn't repress them."

__

And you're an expert on Magneto's life, are you Scott? He was going to lose it. "If I am indeed clean, I'm going to excuse myself," Joseph said, standing somewhat shakily. "I have an unpleasant headache." _And if I don't get out of here I will either start weeping openly or kill you all, or perhaps both._

"You don't look at all well," Hank said. "Perhaps you should remain here for observation."

"I think not," Joseph snapped, unable to keep all the rage out of his voice. "What I require right now is rest and _privacy_. If you wish to pick apart my brain you may do so when I'm actually not present rather than pretending so."

On that note, he stalked out. Predictably, Rogue followed him. "Joe? You okay?"

"My name is Joseph. Not Joe, Joey, Magneto, Magnus, Maggie, Bucket-head, Erik, Lehnsherr, or kiddo. Get it right."

"You know, you don't have to get pissy with me. I'm trying to help you here."

"Then try leaving me alone. That would be a great help."

She came around in front of him, blocking his path. "What's gotten into you?"

He took a deep breath. _I will not throw her into the wall. She is my dear friend, and she is only trying to help. I will not pull the girders out of the wall and wrap them around her neck. Tempting though it may be._ "Are you insensitive, or simply stupid tonight, Rogue?" He stared at her. "I am in a great deal of pain, and I've just had my mind torn open and sifted over in public. I am dangerously close to losing control over my temper, and I want nothing more than to go to my room and pretend none of you exist until such time as I feel capable of being a civil being again."

"I think you're overreacting," Rogue said. "I've had mental probes before. It ain't fun, sure, but nothing I'd think _you_ of all people wouldn't be able to handle."

She had no idea. His mind had just been raped and she was telling him to stop whining. Something in him very nearly snapped then. For a moment, all he knew was an overwhelming desire to hurt her, to fling her into the nearest wall and crush the life out of her with his power.

She backed away from him, fear suddenly on her face. "Joseph?" 

He saw himself mirrored in her eyes-- a demon glowing with energy, face contorted with fury-- and was suddenly sickened. Rogue had faced down the Friends of Humanity, Sentinels, and Onslaught with a warrior's courage, and yet he was such a monster that _he_ could frighten her. He forced the rage down, trembling with its force. Deep breath. Release the energy, let it flow away. "Rogue-- I'm exceptionally poor company right now. Please, leave me be."

"A- all right. Get some sleep."

He managed to make it to his room without further incident, and flung himself onto the bed without even undressing, though the fastenings of his boots were metal so he did pull those off with his powers. Within moments he was asleep, a sleep that quickly proved fitful and nightmarish.

* * *

__

Next: We travel to California, where the doctor is In, and Joseph's mysterious attacker reveals himself.


	4. Chapter 3: In which we meet Dr. Mystery ...

****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 3

Rotating Disclaimer: _Marvel only owns **one** of the people in this chapter, but they'd be mad if you or me tried to make money off it anyway. Margaret Santoro is my baby and cannot be used (except in Sub. Cafe stories) without my permission. And no, I **don't** look like that. Honest. Really. Just because I'm short and have red hair and have an Italian grandmother. I'm nothing like Margaret. Would I lie to you? :-)_

***

Senator John Lightman and his wife sat tensely beside their daughter, a pale and drawn shadow of the child she had to have once been. As if her illness drew energy out of her parents as well, they were also drawn and pale, and didn't seem to have had a good night's sleep in weeks.

Dr. Margaret Santoro strode in wearing the inhuman avatar she chose for her gray work. She noted, gratified, that the parents tensed, their body language transparently fearful. People who were already comfortable with mutants were a source of income, no more, since she could expect them to pursue her objectives anyway. It was the ones that feared her who made valuable additions to her portfolio.

"Senator? Mrs. Lightman? I'm Dr. Mystery." As if they wouldn't have guessed that. She affected the appearance of a taller woman for these meetings, one with gold skin that gleamed like an Academy award and whiteless purple eyes. But while her appearance was deliberately chosen in part to "freak the mundanes", she carefully observed the normal proprieties of a doctor speaking to patients.

"We-- we wouldn't have come here," the Senator said, clutching his daughter's hand. "But we've tried everything for Mindy. You're our last hope, Doctor."

She was always their last hope. And she always came through. "I understand that Mindy has leukemia?"

"Yes, that's right," the wife said.

"I'll need to examine her."

"Of course, of course." The parents moved to stand. Margaret waved them back down.

"I can do it right here. With your permission, I will put my hands on her and use my powers to examine her."

"Use your powers?" the wife squeaked.

"Don't be silly, Dot, of course she has to use her powers," the senator said, sounding none too thrilled about it himself. "Mindy, hon, the doctor has to examine you, all right? She's going to touch you."

"Will it hurt?" Mindy asked, her voice small and exhausted.

"Not at all. You might feel a funny tingle, but that'll be it."

Mindy didn't flinch away as Margaret put her hands on the girl's skin, touching the child's forehead and cheek. With the connection completed, skin to skin, she could feel her way into the flesh, probing for the disease. Distress reports came in from the brainstem like soft murmuring voices, whispering of a body under siege from within. Pain signals made their insistent presence known like an irritating beeper that wouldn't go off. The girl had been dosed with painkillers, but they were doing little to douse the signals. She showed little sign of the pain she must be in. _Such a brave child_, Margaret thought. The terminally ill ones were often brave, as if God gave them some grace to accept their fate, a grace He denied most adults. That wasn't always a good thing; they were brave and resigned and accepting of their fates, not railing against it and struggling to live. The undignified desperate struggle to live was what Margaret found more compelling. Against her will she remembered Celia, and winced inwardly. Everyone reminded her of Celia, particularly the children. They probably always would. _How many hundreds of years will I need to put in before I can forget?..._

She felt out the sites of the illness, the places where the body turned in on itself. A very standard leukemia, no challenge for her skill. Margaret stunned the disease into temporary remission, and triggered neurotransmitters in the brain, flooding the child's body with endorphins. That done, she withdrew.

Mindy blinked. "Mommy? I feel good, Mommy. I think she fixed me."

"You healed her? Just like that?" Dot Lightman asked, astonished.

"No-- I triggered a temporary remission, and removed the pain, so she needn't suffer while we negotiate. I _can_ heal her, easily. It will take three treatments, each at least one week apart. When the process is complete, Mindy will be completely healthy, with the genetic potential for cancer purged from her system entirely, so the likelihood of her developing any other form of cancer at a later date will be much smaller than the average person's risk."

"Oh, God..." The mother started to weep. "Oh, God, thank you..."

"Doctor, I-- I don't know what to say. I'll pay any price, I'll give you anything. Please, make my daughter well."

Promising. "Very well, Senator. Come into my office, and we'll discuss price."

He glanced at his wife, who was hugging their daughter and still crying with joy. "My wife should--"

"It would be better if she didn't. Share anything of our conversation that you like, when it's over, but I'd prefer initially to talk to you alone."

"A-- all right."

In her office, she sat in a stuffed recliner on the other side of an ornate, expensive desk, gesturing her guest to an antique wooden chair with leather padding in front of the desk. "The monetary cost of your daughter's treatment will be eight thousand dollars. It can be paid in as many installments as you like, but I will not perform the final treatment and cure your child permanently until full payment has been received. Will this be a problem?"

"No, no." He shook his head. "I can get that much together easily. I-- I'm surprised, Doctor-- I'd pay anything, you know that, and that's more in line with what I'd pay for standard treatments for leukemia, I mean the kind of experimental treatments they don't cover on insurance are even more expensive than that--" He stopped, apparently aware he was babbling. 

"I can't ask for all that much money without drawing attention to what I'm doing," Margaret said. "So most of my price is exacted in non-monetary form."

He stared at her. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice hardening.

"You're a powerful man, Senator Lightman." Margaret leaned back in her chair. "My people are at war for their very existence. Hate groups kill us with impunity. The United States government funds the building of weapons designed solely to kill or control us. There's even an organization within the government whose aim is to eradicate us, and in the wake of Onslaught and the assassination of Graydon Creed, it's gaining serious political mileage. You may have heard of it-- Operation: Zero Tolerance."

Sweat stood out on his face. "I've-- heard of it, yes."

He was probably one of its supporters. Well, that would change. "In a very short while, you will owe your daughter's life to a mutant," Margaret said coolly. "I want your support for basic human rights for mutants. Oppose the Sentinels program, oppose the Mutant Registration Act, and for the love of your daughter, oppose Operation: Zero Tolerance."

"That's extortion."

"Isn't your daughter's life worth a bit more than a few more coins in your re-election fund? Don't tell me you can't be bought, Senator. I have evidence that says otherwise."

"You don't have anything you could possibly prove in court--"

"I'm not interested in dragging your name through the mud," she interrupted exasperatedly. "I'm interested in your support. I could use my powers solely to make money, but then what would I do when the Sentinels smash in my door? All the money in the world won't save me if I'm declared a nonperson and my assets forfeit." She shook her head. "No, Senator. I need you to help me protect my people."

"You have to understand, Dr. Mystery, that it just isn't that simple. Not all mutants use their powers to heal or aid humans. People like you are clearly not the norm for mutantkind. If you were, perhaps it would be different, but there are so many terrorists out there, people like that Onslaught, Apocalypse, Magneto-- and then there's mutants that might not even mean any harm, but just cause wanton destruction and death anyway, because they're irresponsible. Don't we have the right to protect ourselves from the kind of destruction uncontrolled mutants can cause?"

"Of course you do, but building giant killer robots and dedicating black organizations, paid for by our tax dollars, to our eradication is not how to do it. If you want to stand behind safe, sane legislation to protect mutants and humans from each other, I have reason to believe Senator Schumaker will soon be presenting a bill that suits. Give him your support."

"He's a Democrat."

"And the life of your daughter is not worth a bit of disagreement with your party? Do something brave, Senator. Create a bipartisan coalition to support a humane solution. If you don't-- if no one does-- it's a bloodbath ahead, because mutants won't stand by and allow ourselves to be destroyed. Unlike the Jews in Germany, or the Bosnians more recently, we _do_ have the power to fight back."

"If I refuse? Will you refuse to heal my daughter?"

She hesitated. The need to appear ruthless and uncompromising warred with the need to appear humane and compassionate. "I won't refuse, no. I'll put her into remission. She'll need to come back to me once every six months for a treatment, or the disease will re-occur. For the rest of her life, Senator." Margaret leaned forward. "You see my purpose, don't you? If my people are hounded, rounded up and killed or imprisoned, as Operation: Zero Tolerance wishes--"

"It won't come to that."

"If ever it does, and I am killed or imprisoned, Mindy will die six months later. So it will be in her best interests for you to aid me anyway. Agree to aid me, and we needn't put her-- or you-- through the hassle. Besides," and she leaned back again, "you never know. What if Mindy is a mutant?"

"I--" He started, flustered. "Well, of course she's not a mutant. Neither her mother nor I have any record of--"

"Do you know why they call us mutants, Senator? It's because we have _mutated_. Changed, from the genetic structure of our parents. My parents weren't mutants. Just because you and your wife aren't mutants doesn't mean Mindy might not be. In fact, leukemia is caused by the same factors that cause mutation. The same factors that gave your daughter her disease _might_ have mutated her. You don't know, do you?"

"Couldn't you tell if she was?"

"I didn't check for it. But yes, I could check."

"Well, then you could fix it, couldn't you?"

"Certainly I could. And if she was black, I could make her white and blonde and blue-eyed. And while I'm at it, I could make her a boy. Have you any idea how offensive what you just said is?"

"Well, I-- I didn't mean to give offense. I just want Mindy to have a normal life, that's all."

"Most mutants do. I don't look like this all the time, Senator. When I'm not treating hopeless cases, I live in a nice little house just outside San Diego, with two cats and a dog. I go dancing with men friends on weekends, I buy groceries, I do my laundry. I _choose_ to look like this when I'm treating people like your daughter, because I have no desire to be kidnapped and pressed into the service of crime lords or the government."

"Why would the government kidnap you? Even a mutant has rights. If you committed no crime--"

"--I would still have the power to make old men young, cure impotence and infertility, heal disease and scarring, change people's appearances... come now, Senator, don't be naive. If you had a way to compel my service to heal your daughter without paying my price, you'd do it. And I suspect you're basically a good man, whose concern is for the child he loves. Can you say _none_ of your colleagues would want me to heal _them?_ To restore lost youth, or whatever they had lost?" Unbidden, an image rose to mind of the room, the smell of the antiseptic and the old men screaming under her hands, while snipers behind glass aimed lasers at her in case the important men screaming did not get up and walk away healed when she was done. _Not this time._

"I... suppose power corrupts. There are some bad elements in any system, but that doesn't mean the system is evil."

"Of course the system isn't evil, it just isn't designed to protect people like me." She shook her head. "We're sidetracking. If Mindy proved to be a mutant, she could still have an entirely normal and happy life, so long as you didn't reject her for it and the government didn't kill her for it."

"I would never reject Mindy. No matter what. If-- if she was a mutant--"

"Then your opinions on appropriate treatment of mutants would be rather different, wouldn't they?"

He stared at the carpet. "Very well-- Dr. Mystery. You win. I guess I'd do the same as you're asking, in my place, and if you can give me back Mindy's life, if you can make her healthy-- I guess I owe it to you to try to help your kind. But I'm not going to just vote the way you want, understand. I will study the issues and do what _I_ judge to be best to protect both humans and mutants. I have to do that for my own constituency, or else I'll be voted out of office and I won't be able to help anyone. Do you understand?"

"Of course." She stood up. "I'm glad we could come to an agree--"

The phone rang, the urgent ring. "--ment, Senator." Margaret picked up. "Yes?"

"Doctor, the ghost is on his way in. He looks upset about something."

"I'll deal with it, thanks." She looked up at the Senator. "You'll excuse me, something's come up. Make a second appointment with the receptionist-- tomorrow is probably free-- for Mindy's first treatment. There'll be no charge for the examination and pain suppression today."

She brushed past him and down into the complex before he could speak. As soon as she was safely in the elevator, hidden from any patients on the ground floor, Margaret shifted to her human avatar, her native form-- a small, compactly built woman with a gymnast's body, Mediterranean tan skin, and wavy red hair, shoulder-length. The person she was going to see could be trusted with the knowledge of her human form, and while he was in no position to despise an inhuman appearance, she knew that he was not yet used to this brave new world he'd awakened in, nor the beings that populated it. Besides, she liked her human form. The other was for show. This was her.

* * *

She met him as he came in through the doors at the far end of the complex. The staff called him the ghost, since none of his names were suitable for possible public consumption and that one suited, or had. He was pale as a ghost, and for a year he'd haunted the complex like one, a silent pale shadow who might turn up anywhere but who never offered commentary on what he saw, except possibly to balk at doing something he was supposed to. Now it fit less well-- his excursions to the outside were restoring color to his face, and while he was not what he had been, and probably would never be, he was regaining the fire of life. Not a ghost anymore, he was her Lazarus, called forth from the tomb. She smiled at him as he entered.

He didn't smile back. Instead, power flung her against the wall, pinning her. "Who is he?"

"Who is who?" Margaret reached inside, altering her own genome, adopting a new temporary power. If she had to, she could stop him. But she'd rather not reveal that she had the power to do so. He would be a dangerous foe if he thought he'd been deceived.

"The boy with the X-Men. The one with my powers, and my face."

"Is he with the X-Men? The agent I sent to look for him lost track somewhere in South America."

"So you _do_ know of whom I speak." The power intensified, almost crushing her against the wall. "Who is he?"

"You seem to know a good bit about him yourself. Went to Westchester, did you?"

"I warn you, Mystery, I will not be toyed with. _Answer me!_"

"And I warn _you_, Magnus, that what I gave I can take away." She let her voice grow cold. "Set me down, and we'll talk."

"Are you threatening me?" His eyes narrowed. "I know your limitations, Margaret. Skin to skin, are they not? Tell me how you would take anything from me when you cannot touch me unless I allow it."

__

Adopt the ability to suppress your powers, without which you can't stop me from doing anything. She didn't say that. "Cut the macho bullshit. It doesn't become you. You want to talk, put me down. You want to make threats, do it somewhere else. I'm a busy woman and I don't have time for this crap. Besides, this is a lousy way to treat the person that saved your life."

He released her. "Very well. I would prefer to grant you the benefit of the doubt in any case. So. Who is he?"

"I haven't exactly asked him for a formal introduction."

Magnus made an exasperated noise. "You know very well what I mean! What is he to me?" He stepped forward. "He's the clone, isn't he?"

"What clone?"

"What clone, indeed. In the early days of my recovery, I overheard you discussing a clone with someone-- a man on a viewscreen."

"You couldn't exactly have overheard me looking at a viewscreen, Magnus."

"I was looking for you, I believe... it wasn't my intent to eavesdrop, but you were clearly occupied, and there was so much I didn't know. I don't recall much of the conversation, only that you talked about a clone escaping. I hadn't the faintest idea you meant _my_ clone until--"

"I told you not to go to Westchester. What if they'd seen you?"

"Firstly, do _not_ interrupt me. Secondly, they didn't see me, and thirdly, I do not take orders from you. Suggestions, perhaps, if I agree with them."

"Why didn't you agree with my suggestion that you not go to Westchester?"

That caught him. He looked vulnerable, a trifle bewildered, as he had so often in the past year and so rarely recently. "I-- he _was_ my best friend. I needed to see what he had become-- what his work had led to."

"You didn't see him, did you?" Of course he hadn't. The man was in a maximum security prison, awaiting trial for his role in Onslaught. But it would not be a good idea to tell Magnus that. 

"No. But I saw a child with my face." His eyes bored into hers. "He _is_ my clone, isn't he?" It wasn't really a question.

"See, you didn't need to ask me. You already knew."

"Mystery!" His voice was like a whip. "You try my patience. If he is my clone, how did he come to be? Did you create him, and if so, why? And what is he doing with the X-Men?"

She sighed. "He's a byproduct." This was not a conversation she'd wanted to have. Margaret turned her back on her patient and headed back into the complex.

Magnus followed her. "A byproduct of _what?_ What is that supposed to mean?"

"A byproduct of healing you."

"I cannot see how healing me could possibly have necessitated creating a clone."

"Not a clone. A copy." She turned to face him. "A clone's only a genetic copy. He's a physical copy. He may look younger than you do, but only because I didn't bother with the cosmetic work." She turned and started walking again. "I duplicated you precisely-- every injury, every old scar, every iota of damage to your brain."

"_Why_? Why create a copy of me?"

"Three, actually."

"_Three?_"

"The other two are dead, don't worry."

Power stopped her dead in her tracks. "Mystery, face me. I will not have this discussion while you are walking off, as if you're barely managing to squeeze me in between appointments."

"I _am_ barely managing to squeeze you in between appointments. I'm already late for my 3 o'clock."

"You will be considerably later if you don't answer the questions! Why create any number of copies of me? And why are two of them dead?"

"Guinea pigs."

"For what?"

"For you, silly." She did face him. "Look, it's simple. The human brain is an insanely complex thing. I can do whatever I like to the genome, but there are only a few hundred billion possible combinations in a genome. There are trillions and trillions of combinations in the brain. Even for _me_, healing a damaged brain is a challenge, and yours was so toasted I was terrified of losing pieces of you in the process. So I created some copies, and experimented on them first. I couldn't just start out working on you-- I might have killed you, or done you damage even I couldn't undo. That's what happened to the first two copies-- when I tried to undo the damage to their brains that I'd copied from yours, it... didn't work out. So I disposed of them."

His eyes were wide. "You are a monster," he declared. "You would create sentient life so casually, with a wave of your hand, and dispose of it afterward as if it were a soiled _glove_?"

"Get _off_ the high horse, Magnus. You've done considerable experimentation on sentients yourself."

"I _have?_ That wasn't in the book."

"Savage Land Mutates apparently can't read. Or perhaps your biographer just never asked them. But yes, there are a number of beings out there who could tell you all about the experiments you performed on them, the pain they suffered when you altered their genomes without even experimenting with animals first-- since animals didn't have the potentials you were looking for, and you saw the Savage Landers as subhumans anyway, beings you _could_ just mutate or do anything else you felt like to them." She hated the look of shock on his face. God, why hadn't she been able to give him back the last twenty years? That book was so full of missing pieces it was almost useless. "The copies didn't suffer," she told him. "They weren't sentient beings, since I never let them wake up and develop self-awareness. It was far more humane than if I'd worked on animals."

"And what of Joseph, then?"

"Is that his name?"

"It's what they called him. I must assume it's his name," he said sharply. "Why did he live?"

"Because he didn't die."

"That is not an answer."

"I mean it. The process didn't kill him-- I healed him perfectly, which I used as a guideline to heal you, so I saw no reason not to let him live."

"Didn't you?" He stood closer to her, getting in her space. It might intimidate other people, but since Margaret's power worked by touch, it was totally ineffective on her as it actually made him _more_ vulnerable to her. Or would have, if he weren't shielding himself. "Why would you let a 'byproduct' live? If he wasn't a sentient being to you, why not simply dispose of him, and have no inconvenient questions to answer later?"

She shrugged. "I used him in a different experiment, since he worked out so well. At the time I hadn't had any luck restoring your memories, so I tried copying them into him. It... well, it didn't work very well. He ended up with only the barest of fragments. But in order to check that, I had to wake him up. And once I'd woken him up, he was a person. I couldn't just kill him."

"So-- if he does not have my memories, whose _does_ he have? He appeared to speak English well, and be reasonably adept with his powers."

"He has your experiential skills. Some of them, anyway. A good portion of your scientific knowledge, much of your skill-- the stuff I was able to restore to you fully. What you lack twenty years of, your life memories, he doesn't have at all. Or not much, anyway."

"Does he know what he is?"

"I doubt it very much."

Magnus spoke slowly, a trace of horror in his voice. "He must... believe himself to be me. If he is with the X-Men... and he has even fragments of my memories... if he does not know what he is, they have no way to know..." Blue-grey eyes focused on her, trying to pin her like a hawk's gaze. "I want to meet him."

"Well, call up his social secretary and see if he can squeeze you into his calendar," Margaret snapped. "I haven't got any control over him. After he left here I lost interest entirely."

"You sent an agent after him."

She made a dismissive motion with her hands. "Routine follow-up. I didn't really care what happened to him, except that he could provide you some degree of protection by drawing what fire would be aimed at Magneto."

"You sent a complete innocent out in the world, thinking he's _me_, to draw fire that should have been aimed at me?"

"Not really-- I let him go because I didn't have time to deal with him, and I figured he deserved to live, at least, for all he did for you. I couldn't have saved you without him, without the experiments I successfully completed on him. But I didn't really care what happened to him after that. My concern is _you_, not your doppelganger."

"I can't allow that." He was shaking his head. "I can't allow him to carry that burden. Not if he is an innocent."

"Last I heard, he killed half a dozen people in South America in rather gruesome fashions."

"And still you don't care what he does? If he's a monster with my face and my powers, I must destroy him; if he's an innocent, I must take the burden of being me off his back. Even if he is _not_ an innocent, he is at least innocent of being me." She could still see the horror in his eyes. "I know... something... of what it is to awake, to a world you do not know, and learn that you have been a monster. But I at least have _some_ context, some way to relate who I am to who I clearly became... he must have nothing. A tabula rasa, and they are telling him he is the evil Magneto, and how could he help but believe?... No, I can't permit that."

She sighed. "Don't show up on their doorsteps and announce that hey, I'm the real Magneto, can I have a chat with Joseph please? At least do me that favor."

"I would hardly be that big a fool. No, I'll speak to him privately, without involving the X-Men." He turned and started back the way he'd come.

"You aren't even going to stay here and eat? I'm making deviled beef tonight. You liked that last time."

Magnus turned back. "You are quite positive that you are not Jewish?"

Margaret grinned. "Catholic all the way. You're picking up the Italian part. If I was Jewish I'd have to say something like, 'Go on, go ahead and leave me. Drive a knife _right_ into my heart, that's all right.'"

He laughed. "You seem entirely too young to be my grandmother."

__

Older than I look. And younger than you know. "I'd prefer not to be your grandmother if I can help it."

"I'd prefer that as well. And that you didn't try to be my mother. I am apparently over sixty years old, and quite adept at caring for myself."

"Except when you're not."

"_Dr._ Santoro, I am as healed as I will be. I'm no longer your patient. Do not strain our alliance by presuming too much control over me; I neither require nor desire someone to take care of me." He looked at her hard. "Especially one who might take it into her head that caring for me might involve creating a hapless clone as a byproduct and letting him run around free without any attempt to monitor his activities or let him know the truth of his identity."

"I don't tell you how to reshape metal. You can second-guess me all you like, but the facts are, you'd still be drooling onto your diapers if I hadn't done what I did."

"Fair enough. But understand that I must undo as much of the damage you did as I can."

"Be my guest. But don't bring him back here, and don't bring me into it. He isn't to know about me-- I don't want him turning up on my doorstep looking for Mommy."

"Very well."

She watched him leave. Damn the man. Had her Magnus been so exasperating? A sudden memory of throwing glassware at him, in a house they'd taken over as a base, his voice overriding hers no matter how loudly she screamed at him, and Celia calling them both idiots and screaming at them-- okay, yes, he had been. She'd gotten used to the ghost, and the return of the real Magnus was going to drive her up the wall.

Still, it was good to see him have a will again, instead of being a passive silent reed that bent to the whims of others. Margaret turned back and headed for her appointment room upstairs again. She was _very_ late for her three o'clock.

* * *

__

Next: Back in Westchester, we get bad puns and cinnamon coffee from Gambit, and Joseph does his Magneto imitation.


	5. Chapter 4: In which Joseph shares coffee...

****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 4

Rotating Disclaimer: _This is the chapter that made me feel like I was possessed by the spirit of Peter David, and he's not even dead. Don't you hate that? :-) Marvel owns all these people, and I don't._

***

The annoying noise woke Joseph out of his fitful sleep. Groggy, he reached first for the alarm clock and then for the telephone before realizing that firstly, the noise didn't come from either location, and secondly, that it wasn't a noise at all, but an electromagnetic signal. Upon realizing this, he decided to ignore it, roll over and go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, by now he was awake. In fact, in a sense he'd been looking for an excuse to wake up for some time. He was still tired, but sleeping didn't seem to be helping matters, not with the nightmares. At this point, he was probably better off showering and getting some coffee than trying to sleep any longer. And when he glanced at the clock, he saw why-- he'd gone to bed around five in the afternoon last night, and it was ten am now. That mindprobe had taken more out of him than even he guessed, to sleep seventeen hours. He still felt like he'd been drugged. Hopefully a shower would help.

Half an hour later, his quest for coffee and breakfast food brought him to the kitchen, where Rogue and Gambit were sharing some godawful burnt and overspiced sausage, or seafood, or whatever it was. Joseph fought down his reflexive annoyance at seeing how close Gambit sat to Rogue. He had vowed he was not going to try to come between her and her friends out of jealousy, and Rogue was a strong-willed, stubborn woman. Nothing would drive her away from him-- and likely straight into Gambit's arms-- faster than being overtly jealous of Gambit. He'd seen how much Gambit being jealous of him irritated Rogue, and remembered well how angry she'd been with the two of them for fighting over her (though, to be utterly fair, what they'd really been fighting over was Gambit attacking him from behind because Gambit had a dirty mind and thought he'd been looking in Rogue's window as she dressed.) Joseph was not about to make that mistake. "Good morning, Rogue, Remy."

"Morning, sugar. You're up late."

He was. Normally he was up at nine or earlier. It was almost ten-thirty now. "Is there any coffee left?"

"Sorry, homme. I didn't figure anyone else would be drinking it, so I finished it off. You want, I can make you some of my famous cinnamon coffee."

Joseph didn't normally drink much coffee-- most of the time he woke up fine without it-- but when he did, he took it black. It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse; then he shrugged mentally. A peace offering from Remy was rare. "I would enjoy that. Thank you."

Remy looked startled that Joseph had taken him up on it. "Ah-- okay, then. I need space on the stove."

All the pots lifted themselves off the stove and into the sink, with the exception of the one that had the burnt whatever-it-was in it, which Joseph set down on the counter. Rogue turned in her chair and picked it up. "You want the last of the catfish, Joseph?"

"No thank you. Is there any sausage left?"

"Someone finished that yesterday. You can have eggs."

"I suppose I must." He knelt down in front of the refrigerator, attempting to locate said eggs.

"Or Honey Smacks," Remy supplied. "We got almost a whole box of them."

Joseph winced. "Whose are those?"

"Bobby's, who else? The man takes immaturity to an art form," Rogue said, grinning. "Though I like to have Frosted Flakes for breakfast sometimes, myself."

"You're an American. I'll make allowances."

"Nothing wrong with cold cereal," Remy said blandly.

"Not at all. It's the idea of having a little cold cereal with my sugar that turns my stomach. If I'm going to transfuse that much sugar directly into my veins, I might as well use a hypodermic needle. And I'm certainly not going to do it on an empty stomach."

"No fun at all," Rogue said. She leaned on the refrigerator door. "Seriously. You okay this morning? You were pretty bad off yesterday."

"Considerably recovered," Joseph said, standing up with eggs and real butter in his grasp-- a small coup, as the X-cooks tended to prefer margarine. "Thank you." The annoying not-noise started again. "Though I think I'd be better recovered if that infernal thing would stop."

"What infernal thing?" Remy asked.

"Sunspots or something. I keep picking up bursts of electromagnetic static." He shook his head. "It's really irritating."

"Is this related to what happened yesterday?"

"I don't know, but I doubt it. Remy, kindly move your elbow." He floated a frying pan containing his eggs and butter over to the stove and flipped the back burner on, setting the pan down on it.

"Could give a man warning, there."

"I did. I told you to move your elbow."

"I meant warning that you were going to start cooking by remote control. Especially if you're going to go turning burners on. A fellow could burn himself."

"Sorry." What kind of person actually prepared coffee on a stove, as opposed to just tossing it into a coffee maker? "What did get decided about what happened yesterday?"

"Not much, after you left," Rogue said. "We figured we'd just all stay alert, is all. And I'm supposed to tell you to keep your eyes open for any other anomalous stuff."

"No other theories?"

"Oh, the usual suspects. Time-travelers, clones, power mirrors, alternate universe stuff. We just don't have enough evidence to say what, yet."

"Me, I love being part of this team," Gambit said. "Before I joined up, all I had to worry about was assassins trying to kill me. Now I get to hang around with people who say stuff like, 'maybe it's an alternate universe version of Magneto', and they mean it _seriously_. Where else could you get that, mon ami?"

"I'm _still_ trying to absorb Cable's history."

"Don't strain yourself, homme. Better men than us have tried to understand Cable, and failed."

Rogue laughed. "I keep forgetting how new all this superhero stuff is to you, hon. You don't think it's a little weird that you're a 60-year-old guy who looks 20 and has amnesia, used to be a major league supervillain and now's joined up with the side of the angels, used to live on a _asteroid_ in _outer space_, and now you don't get Cable?"

"Sure he gets cable, chere, same as the rest of us. 112 channels in the living room. Gambit, he like the cooking channel best."

Rogue whapped Gambit with a towel. "That ain't what I meant!"

"Do the two of you practice these routines when I'm not looking?" Joseph asked, removing his eggs from the burner. "And Remy, while I appreciate the gesture, you really don't need to hand-brew every individual coffee bean by yourself."

"Got _no_ taste, homme. This is gourmet cinnamon coffee, not that crap you usually drink."

"I don't care. I would like some caffeine, and soon, else I might find myself actually breaking down and drinking Coca-Cola."

"Damn. Truly a fate worse than death. Hang on un minute, your coffee be ready in a jiff."

The static started again. Irritated, Joseph reached out and scanned for the disturbance. If it was a broken transformer somewhere near the house... it wasn't. "Something wrong?" Rogue asked.

"Just that signal again." He shook his head. "I'm sure Magneto never had to put up with this."

"That is kind of funny," Remy observed, handing him his coffee. "You want to go off on a riff about not being Magneto and all, fine, but you _are_, technically, the same guy who called himself Master of Magnetism. Funny that some sunspots or something going to drive you up a wall because you can hear them-- or pick them up, anyway-- and no one else can."

"As I said, I'm not the Master of Magnetism. Half the time, I feel like magnetism masters me," Joseph said wryly, digging into his eggs. The food and the coffee did wonders for the lingering remains of the headache. "This _is_ very good coffee, Remy. My compliments."

"Too bad you're wasting it on such boring eggs. You should've had me make them for you, I could've spiced them up."

"That's exactly why I didn't ask you. I can handle Cajun spices for dinner. Not breakfast."

"Put hair on your chest, homme."

"Then perhaps you should stop feeding Wolverine."

Rogue laughed. "Wolverine was always that hairy." She put her hand near his-- even though she was wearing gloves, Rogue was still fairly reticent about actually touching people in casual contexts. "Don't worry, though. You'll get your skills back, I'm sure."

"How? According to Jean, what you see is what you get. I no longer _have_ the memories I can't remember. The only way I'm to get them back is through training and experience." He smiled wryly. "Which, I suppose, makes me the journeyman of magnetism."

Gambit chuckled. "Guess it does at that."

"What's that mean?"

"It's a term we use in the Guild," Gambit said. "A journeyman's the rank under a master."

"Not just your Guild. The term actually comes from the Middle Ages, when the structure of guilds was how all commerce was conducted." Joseph took a quick sip of coffee. "There were three ranks-- apprentice, journeyman and master. An apprentice was typically a child or younger adolescent, sworn to the service of a master in exchange for his teaching. He was bound to obey his master in all things, and the master cared for him, in theory, as a father would a child--"

"Though in practice it don't end up like that, most times," Gambit said.

"I'm sure it didn't. A master was considered the epitome of his craft. He had a full voice in Guild votes, had the right to take apprentices and to add new techniques to the repertoire of the Guild. There was nothing he need learn from anyone else; he was the expert."

"And then there the journeyman."

"Right. Better experienced than an apprentice, he's no longer beholden to a master-- it's his task to go out in the world and increase his knowledge through training and experience, to develop his own clientele, to hone his craft his own way until, eventually, he reaches the rank of master." He finished the coffee. "If Magneto was the master of magnetism, I'm merely the journeyman. I have a long way to go before reaching his level of skill."

"That wouldn't be a bad code name for you," Rogue said slowly.

"Pardon?"

"I just meant it's a little silly to be calling you Joseph in the middle of a battle, but you won't answer to Magneto."

"It's not just that I won't answer to it. Obviously if someone yells, 'Magneto, duck!' I'll duck. But I have a tendency to panic the people we're trying to rescue, and it doesn't help if people are calling me Magneto, just in case they hadn't noticed. I have _tried_ to change my appearance, but it won't do any good if the X-Men call me that."

"You tried to change your appearance? When?" Remy asked.

"Ha very ha. None of the photographs I've seen show Magneto with waist-length hair. Did you think I affected this merely because it's attractive? I also wear an X-Men uniform-- which, I must confess, looks hideous on me-- rather than _my_ color preferences, which unfortunately would be purple and red. I don't talk like Magneto, I don't move like him, I certainly don't dress like him, and I do look about twenty years younger-- odd, given that I _should_ look about forty years younger, but it seems I've never looked my age."

"And here I'm thinking you wear your hair long because you trying to be a sensitive New Age guy."

"How do you know that you don't talk like Magneto?" Rogue asked. "I mean, when have you heard Magneto?"

Given that he'd been forbidden to access the files on himself, it was a good question, he had to admit. Joseph decided to confess. In the light of yesterday's revelation that he would never revert to being Magneto, it was probably safe enough. "Do you remember when I went on a quest to find my past?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I found it."

"When did this happen?" Gambit asked, scowling.

"The weeks I said Joseph went back to South America?"

"Is that what you told everyone?"

"It wasn't a lie. Avalon _was_ in South America," Rogue said. 

"Half of it at any rate. I ended up having to impersonate Magneto to prevent Exodus from enacting an unusually stupid plan."

"Sounds like Exodus, all right," Gambit said.

"What do you mean, impersonate Magneto?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. Dress up in his costume, pretend to be him, talk like him-- and use the power that impersonation gave me to try to redirect the Acolytes from their mindless bigotry. I doubt I had much effect, but I _did_ get Exodus to fall for it, and stop the plan."

"Whose brilliant idea was this?" Rogue asked.

"Fabian Cortez's."

"Oh, that's just great! How many times you going to fall for that sleazebag?"

"Anyway, isn't he dead?" Gambit asked.

"Not last time I checked. Unfortunately. You'll keep in mind, Rogue, that I had no idea that he'd tried to kill me before, and by the time I found out, he seemed truly repentant." Joseph shrugged. "I am in little position to castigate a man for the evils he's committed in the past, not if he wants to make amends, and Cortez seemed to."

"So what happened?"

He wasn't going to tell them how close he'd slipped to the edge, how he had for a while convinced himself that he truly was Magneto. That particular bout of temporary insanity wasn't one he was eager to talk about. "So, nothing to tell. New Avalon came under attack, I helped defend it, this convinced Exodus that I was the one true god, and together we attempted to repay Cortez for trying to set us at each other's throats, but he'd escaped. So I disbanded the Acolytes-- I told them the time wasn't right, and I'd let them know when it was-- and left."

"So Cortez is still out there?"

"Presumably. Unless he froze to death in the Arctic, but this seems like unlikely luck."

"Well, you _ain't_ going to fall for him next time, you hear me?"

"Of course not. As convincing as he may be, I know better now."

"I still don't get how you go impersonating yourself," Gambit said. "I figure you just show up and say 'I'm Magneto', and they'd believe you, non?"

"Perhaps, but I didn't test it. Magneto has _very_ different speech patterns and body language than I do."

Rogue shook her head. "I don't think so. You sound like Magneto to me."

"I think you're just fooled by knowing who I am."

"Do it, then," Remy said.

"Do what?"

"Your Magneto impression. If you think it's different from the way you act most of the time, show us."

A challenge. He didn't particularly _want_ to impersonate Magneto again, but he wasn't going to back down. "All right, then." Joseph stood up and turned away from the two of them, and took a deep breath. He straightened, drawing presence around himself as if it were the energies he manipulated, and turned back to them with a face like a glowering mask of stone.

"Too long has the destiny of mutantkind been dictated by our genetic inferiors," he declared in a booming voice, pitching it deeper than his normal speaking tone. "Too long have we been trampled under the heels of those we are destined to supplant. No longer!" He gestured with a clenched fist. "From this day forth, humanity will learn to submit to _us_!"

Remy and Rogue were staring at him, and Joseph wasn't entirely sure he liked their expressions. He broke character with a grin. "So. How was that?"

"Very... um. Very Magneto," Remy said weakly.

"Magneto at his most psycho," Rogue muttered. "You don't believe any of that crap, do you, Joseph?"

"Of course not. I can't very well do a Magneto impression while declaring that fuzzy bunnies are wonderful and we should all be kind to our mothers, no?"

"Might be fun to see you try," Remy said, grinning, his usual insouciance back.

"You had me going for a moment there," Rogue said. "I see what you mean now, about you not sounding like Magneto. Thing is, Magneto didn't always sound like that. I mean, yeah, he did speeches like that, but he talked like a normal person sometimes too. You're doing Magneto at his craziest."

"I rather suspected as much," Joseph said. "Even a maniac can't possibly talk like that _all_ the time. It had to be an act."

"I don't know if I'd call it an _act_, exactly--"

"I would. It's a mask, as much as that helmet was." He sat down again. "It's actually one of the few things I understand about Magneto, why he did the things he did. I have always done something similar when my object is to be frightening or impressive. I suppose... if that was all I cared about... if there was no place for me to _be_ a 'normal person', as you put it... I would adopt it far more often."

Remy looked at Rogue askance. "Careful, chere, he's revealing his trade secrets. The Supervillains' Guild, they're going to come after him and kill us for knowing too much, now."

"They won't come after _me_. I know all the tricks-- my momma was a card-carrying member." Rogue stared intently at Remy. "But I guess you were pure as the snow, huh, Remy?"

"Chere. I don't want to go there and neither do you."

"Your mother was a supervillain?"

"Yeah, I never told you? My momma-- Mystique-- she used to head up the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants."

Joseph snorted. "I'm sorry, but that is an unbelievably stupid name. No disrespect to your mother intended, Rogue, but who could come up with a name that idiotic?" 

Silence reigned for a moment. Joseph took in their expectant, almost gleeful expressions, and his heart sank. "Oh no. Don't tell me."

"There were two Brotherhoods of Evil Mutants," Rogue said, entirely too cheerfully. "Momma based hers on the first one. Three guesses who founded-- and named-- the first one."

"Please. I've endured enough humiliation for one day."

The static hit again then, much stronger than the previous times. Joseph had ignored four or five pulses while talking to his friends. This one, however, hurt. "It ain't _that_ bad, Joseph. You don't need to make such a face."

"No-- no, it's that pulse again."

"Sure, I believe that. He just don't want us to tell him about the costume with the M on the chest," Remy said.

"Hey, I liked that costume."

"You can't be serious, chere."

"Sure can. Some men got the bods to carry off a sleeveless costume and some don't."

He ignored their banter, as flattering as it might be, and concentrated on the irritating pulse. It wasn't coming from a transformer, or from sunspots, or any such thing. He followed it back to its source, probing--

--and got hit with another pulse. This one was of lesser strength than the last one, but clearly there was some intelligence behind the pulses, something directed.

And then it hit him. The patterns to the static were always the same. He replayed the last one in his mind, translating into Morse code.

_Josef._

Joseph pushed back from the table. "I'm sorry, I have to go."

"What? What's wrong?"

"It's that signal." He considered, rapidly, telling her about it-- that someone was calling him by name, signaling him in a way that surely next to no one else would be able to detect. But it wasn't a good idea. Whoever this was, they most likely thought him to be Magneto-- the fact that they assumed he spelled his name German-style indicated that to him. Either an enemy of Magneto's, and if so he didn't want his friends getting caught in the crossfire of a battle meant for him alone, or a friend of Magneto's, in which case bringing Rogue or Gambit was a great way to start an unnecessary fight. He might no longer be allied with any of Magneto's former friends, but if one of them was coming to him for help he didn't want them to be attacked, either. "Probably just some broken transformer or something, but it's driving me batty. I have to go find out what's causing it, and fix it."

"You want help?"

"For going to fix a broken transformer? I hardly think that's necessary."

"You sure that's what it is?" Gambit asked. "Seems tres suspicious to me-- yesterday you get attacked by some magnetic pulse, today you keep getting irritated by one. Sounds like a connection to _me_."

And to Joseph. But if he let them know his suspicions, they'd insist on coming. "I'll radio in if it turns out it's anything I'll need help with, all right?"

"I still think we should come with you," Rogue said.

He shook his head. "No, Rogue. It's almost certainly nothing--" hating himself for lying to her, although it was for her own good-- "and if it _does_ prove to be related to the anomaly last night, I want a chance to investigate it for myself before calling in the entire team. Please." He looked into her eyes. "I cannot be running to the X-Men, asking them to hold my hand, any time any small thing happens. You understand, don't you?"

"Not sure..." she sighed. "But all right. If you're hell-bent on going alone, I can't stop you-- but dammit, call if you need _anything_. And I'll tell Jean to keep an ear out for you if you need to yell for help telepathically."

"Thank you."

In minutes he was airborne, heading for upstate New York, where he sensed the pulses originating from. Now that he had the signal, he could follow it back without making it pulse again, apparently, like a single electromagnetic thread to be followed through the tapestry of the fields all around him. It was time to find out what this was all about.

* * *

__

Next: I think we can all tell what's going to happen next...


	6. Chapter 5: In which Joseph searches for ...

****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 5

Rotating Disclaimer: _At long last, we have Final Draft Sign! (So now I will find 400 typos, of course.)_

***

"So. You believe him, chere?"

Rogue looked up from the last of the cinnamon coffee. "About what?"

Remy made an exasperated gesture. "He don't want anyone to help him because it's a matter of _honor._ The great Master of Magnetism-- or Journeyman of Magnetism, whatever-- he don't want help from us mere mortals, because it's just some broken power line or something. You believe any of that?"

"It's sure not hard to believe Joseph wouldn't want help," Rogue said musingly. "The man is _almost_ as stubborn as he used to be, and that's still a whole lot of stubborn. Why? You think it's something else?"

"Think about it. He goes off because he's getting some kind of weird magnetic signal. He _says_ it's probably a broken power line or something, but it don't seem to Gambit like Magneto ought to _be_ vulnerable like that. Something's getting on his nerves, it ain't going to be by accident."

Rogue's eyes narrowed. Joseph's behavior seemed odd to her as well, but she didn't like the note of suspicion in Remy's voice. _The man just wants to do something on his own. With a pride like his, and after what happened yesterday, who could blame him?_ "What're you saying, Remy?"

"I think someone's sending him a message. And he don't want us around because whatever it says, it ain't something he wants the X-Men to hear."

"I think you're just jealous. You ain't never going to accept that Joseph's not the man he was, are you? Just because he's _my_ friend, and you and your ego can't stand me having a man friend."

"He was just your friend, chere, I'd have no problems with him."

"_I_ never said he was anything more than that. You been listening to gossip, Remy? I sure don't think _Joseph_ said him and me were together."

Remy shook his head. "This has nothing to do with it, anyway. Trust me, Gambit know how to tell when a man lying, and Joseph just not very good at it. There more to this than a broken transformer or something. Someone, they send him that signal. Maybe the X-Men want to know about who might be sending signals to Magneto, non?"

He had a point, unfortunately. Joseph hadn't told her the details of what happened went when he went on his quest to find Avalon until today. His little stunt of impersonating Magneto might have saved the day, like he claimed. But it probably had won him enemies-- such as Cortez-- and seriously dangerous psycho friends, like Exodus. Suppose Exodus had decided that the time had come for Magneto to return to his former place as leader of the Acolytes, regardless of "Magneto's" opinion in the matter? Joseph could be walking into a trap. He hadn't the experience or skill to protect himself against people who were a match for Magneto, and if this was an old enemy of Magneto's... "It could be a trap," she admitted. "He might not know what he's getting into." She stood up. "We'd better go along."

"Just you and me?" He grinned at her. 

That was probably a bad idea. For one thing, if they were going to go up against people who were ready for Magneto, her and Gambit by themselves wouldn't necessarily be a big help. On the other hand, if she called the entire team in on this, it was likely to end up in exactly the same sort of situation that Joseph probably wanted to avoid. The X-Men tended to be trigger-happy when it came to Magneto, or allies of Magneto, and while last night's revelation confirmed what Rogue had wanted to believe all along, she wasn't sure that the rest of the team would still entirely trust Joseph, even knowing now that Magneto's memories were entirely purged from him. 

That didn't leave her with much choice. She couldn't think of anyone she could recruit on this kind of short notice who she could trust not to attack Joseph and whoever he was going to meet unless it was actually necessary. "Yeah, I guess. We'll bring a portable Cerebro to track him and radios to call in for backup if we need it."

* * *

Five minutes later they were in the air, Rogue carrying Gambit and Gambit carrying the portable Cerebro. "Got a lock on him yet?"

"Yeah, didn't go far. I'm picking up his signal about forty miles northeast... wait a min, I'm getting something strange here."

"What?" She tried to look, but given their positioning this was impossible. "What's it say?"

"I got it set to look for Magneto, right?"

"You'd better."

"Well, it finding two of them again. One about forty miles northeast, and one still traveling that way... no, he stabilizing, too, round about there... now I'm just getting one."

"Does that thing have a replay function?"

"Yeah, just a sec... yeah, I'm seeing two of them still. One moving, one not."

"And now you're getting just one, because the moving signal stopped at the same place the other one was?"

"Oui."

Two signals that stabilized into one might have been a glitch-- except that the portable Cerebro was unlikely to have the _exact_ same problems that the more powerful stationary version had, and something had struck Joseph down the other day-- something, or someone, with more control over magnetism than he had-- something, or someone, that was perfectly capable of sending the signal he'd picked up--

"Aw shit."

Rogue picked up speed, while Gambit radioed the team. Joseph was walking into _really_ bad trouble.

* * *

The signal had stopped as Joseph approached it. Now he was picking up a standing field of considerable power, on the other side of the Hudson near Marlboro. 

_Curious_. If it was a foe, it was a particularly incompetent one, to choose a locus of such intense magnetic energy as a place to confront him. Which argued that it might well be a friend, but then, friends of Magneto's weren't necessarily friends of Joseph's. He landed in a newly harvested field, on what was apparently a rather large farm, and walked cautiously to a barn. There were no signs of living bioelectric energy patterns inside, but it might be hard to tell something so subtle in the center of such a powerful magnetic field. _Something_ inside was throwing off a tremendous amount of energy. Shielded, he entered.

The barn was mostly empty, and smelled of nothing stronger than old hay and apples. A man stood in the shadows at the back of the large empty area. Joseph stepped forward--

--and realized that the magnetic field was actually _coming_ from the other man, a split second before the man stepped forward as well, into a band of sunlight, and Joseph saw his face.

It was his own, twenty years older. 

Without hesitation, Joseph attacked, flinging power at his doppelganger. Fool, fool, to come here alone. The other would kill and replace him if he could, use the trust Joseph had worked so hard to win from the X-Men to destroy them all, and he could not allow it. But the other seemed to absorb his attack, drawing Joseph's power into himself without any apparent signs of pain or harm. Of course-- raw power against one who could seemingly duplicate his powers was a foolish idea. He reached for steel instead, pitchforks and spades and other tools at the back of the barn, but even as he grasped them his doppelganger had grasped _him_, twisting his own fields around him and binding him with his own power. Joseph fought frantically, trying to draw on the energies the other one was generating as well as generating his own, but it was like he was playing tug'o'war over the magnetic energies with someone who was braced behind a huge rock, while he was sliding on mud. He couldn't seem to get a proper grip, not with the constant rapid changing of the field's polarity and loci of charge, and then he was lying on the ground, immobilized to the point where he couldn't even properly breathe, his own power wound tight around him and every attempt he made to free himself only tangling him worse. The other knelt on top of him, hands pushing his upper arms against the dirt of the barn floor. Grimly, desperately, he kept trying to fight his way free. _I won't die! Not like this--_

"Boy. Are you going to stop struggling and listen, or must we fight?" the man demanded in the slightly deeper, slightly more commanding variant of Joseph's own voice that he identified as Magneto's. "I don't wish to harm you!"

"You-- have an interesting way-- of showing your-- concern," Joseph gasped. "Let-- me up!"

"I am hardly that big a fool. Give me your word that you won't attack until you have heard me out, and I'll release you."

"So you can-- kill me and take-- my place with-- impunity?" Joseph mustered up all of his strength, focusing on the weak points of the threads that bound his power. "I-- think not!"

He flung the other man off him, freeing himself for a second. It was no more than a second, though. The other caught himself before he hit anything, and sent a feedback wave at Joseph like the one that had stunned him at the mansion. He was a little better prepared for it this time, but not enough. It stunned him, numbing his power for a moment, and in that moment his opponent bound him again.

"Listen to me, boy. If I wanted to kill you, I would have already. I came here to talk to you. If you keep struggling you may well win free, for a few moments at least, but in the end I will win, and a battle between us could cause untold damage. Do you truly wish to cause an electromagnetic pulse, barely 90 miles from New York City?" The man was grasping his uniform shirt, holding him up by that, his face right in front of Joseph's and his voice painfully loud at that distance.

He had a point, unfortunately. Being one of the heroes bound one to care about the fates of the innocent. Joseph had read about Blackout Thursday, the incident where he'd EMP'd the world and killed over a thousand people. An EMP so close to the major airports of the Eastern Seaboard would cause untold death and destruction as planes fell out of the sky. And yet, he couldn't simply give in.

"Talk," Joseph grated out. "I will listen, at least." Listen warily, while working his way free of the other's control as best he could. "You can begin with who you are."

The other man released him physically, though his powers were still bound. "Who do you think I am?"

"A replica of me. Someone, or something, capable of duplicating my powers and appearance. Probably for no pleasant purpose."

"A reasonable suspicion, given what you know," the man said. "I suppose, in your place... no, strike that. Obviously, in your place I'd make the same guess. But there's much you don't know, Joseph. Tell me, how is it that a mere doppelganger could possibly hold you captive with your own power?"

_I wish I knew._ "If you've done your research, you must know I have suffered a certain degree of memory loss."_ Such as all of it._ "If you somehow duplicate my skills from when I had all my memories..."

"There is a much simpler explanation." The man's eyes bored into his. So very like his own face, and yet so different-- not just the age difference, but other things. A confidence Joseph could only pretend to, an arrogance he couldn't allow himself. "I am the true Magneto, and you are the replica."

"Naturally you would say that."

"It's a far better explanation than that some sort of unholy simulacrum could defeat the Master of Magnetism so thoroughly with his own power." Abruptly the power that bound Joseph was released. But by now Joseph was intensely curious. If the other attacked him again, he would respond in kind, but he wasn't going to attack again himself. Not just yet, anyway. "Listen to me, Joseph. I am Magnus, once called Erik Lehnsherr, and I have come to take the burden of being me away from you. You have no need to fear me-- I have no desire to kill you, and less to replace you. I simply wish you to stop trying to replace _me_."

"If I truly have no reason to fear you, why did you attack me yesterday?"

He shrugged slightly. "I had no idea who you were, yesterday, and little desire to reveal my existence to the X-Men. You would have disrupted my screen of invisibility if I hadn't stunned you. The flying young woman was right there-- I saw no reason why she would not catch you."

_The flying young woman?_ Oh, nice try, but Joseph knew too well that Magneto had a history with Rogue. He would not refer to her as the "flying young woman." It had been tempting to believe, for a moment-- the thought that he might not, in fact, be Magneto was seductive. As it was intended to be, no doubt. Careless of the doppelganger, or whoever had prepared him. "And why, exactly, have you come to tell me this? Out of the goodness of your heart?" He narrowed his eyes. "I know Magneto. If you truly _were_ the real one, and I the copy, you would hardly be trying to make peace with me. The real Magneto would kill a duplicate for the effrontery of pretending to be him." He remembered his own brief psychotic episode where he'd thought he was Magneto, and had insisted desperately to himself that Joseph was a weak fool who'd deserved death. 

"So I fail your test, because I did not try to kill you after all? You know _nothing_ of Magneto, boy. You know fragments only, and the biased words of the world and of Charles's students. What can you know of what you do not remember?"

"More than you, apparently." Joseph braced himself. There was no way to beat the other by attacking him directly, but if he tried some sort of magnetic judo, letting the other attack _him_ and using the attack against him as the other had done to him, he might have a chance. "You see, I know that the real Magneto would know 'the flying young woman's' real name, and use it. Clearly you have good control over my powers, but you know even less than I do of Magneto's life."

The man laughed.

Joseph really hadn't expected that. It wasn't a villainous laugh, or a snickering laugh, or a cruel or mocking laugh. If anything, it seemed self-mocking, but not bitterly so. "A child shall lead the way," the man said, still laughing. "You're wrong, of course, but in another sense you're absolutely right. I am not, in a certain sense, the 'real' Magneto-- though I am rather closer to real than you. What I am is the real Erik Magnus Lehnsherr. Inasmuch as _that_ means anything, given that to me, Erik Lehnsherr died many years ago."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean that I--"

He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. The roof smashed in, Rogue barreling through it at high speed. "_DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!_" she shouted, changing course to descend upon Joseph's doppelganger.

The other flung up a force field, and Rogue smashed into it. The doppelganger was driven to his knees by the impact against his shield, but Rogue was flung wildly, bouncing off and flying madly at the wall of the barn. Joseph reacted instinctively to catch her, cushioning her. A telekinetic field grabbed him, pulling him away from the doppelganger. Instinctively he almost lashed out, realizing at the last second that it was Jean holding him.

"Jean, let go! I'm all right!" Damn, it was the entire team. Exactly what he'd hoped to avoid. He'd wanted answers, and it didn't look like it was going to happen now. Gambit had flung several cards at the doppelganger, which had exploded harmlessly against the man's shield. The rest of the team were piling on, attacking from all different directions. So far the shield was still in one piece.

"Fools! I didn't come here to fight you!"

"Then you shouldn't have messed with one of the X-Men!" Bobby shouted, piling ice on the shield. The temperature of the room dropped noticeably.

_So I'm one of the X-Men when a duplicate shows up and tries to take my place. That's good to know._ Although, Joseph was troubled. None of them were letting the man talk, and while he didn't believe the other's story about being the real Magneto for a minute, it _was_ true that the man hadn't threatened him. Immobilized him, yes, but Joseph _had_ attacked first. 

"You okay, sugar?" Rogue, recovered from her fall, flew over to where Joseph stood by Jean.

"I'm fine. Rogue, I don't know if this is--"

Rogue wasn't listening. She turned and charged back into the battle the moment she heard that he was all right. The weight of the ice on one end, the energy blasts and punches that were slamming into the force field from other directions, and now Rogue's piledriver fists against it were seriously weakening the shield. Joseph noticed that despite this, the other had not yet launched an offensive attack. 

"Joseph!" Cyclops shouted. "You can disrupt his shield and let us in at him! Jean, get me information!"

_I can do that, but is it what I want to do?_ If the X-Men piled on the doppelganger, Joseph might never find out who he was, who had sent him, or why he was able to duplicate Joseph's powers at a greater level of skill than Joseph himself had. His eyes narrowed. "Are you going to try a telepathic probe?" he asked Phoenix.

She nodded. "His mental shields are strong, but he's distracted. If you bring down his shields--"

"--Wolverine, or someone, will kill him before we get any information. No, I have a better idea." He reached out for the shields, his own power flowing around them, disrupting them in small annoying ways. A huge cascade of ice crashed through the shield, nearly on top of the doppelganger, who kept having to compensate for Joseph's pokes at his shield as well as the blows the X-Men were raining on it. Joseph was tensed, ready for anything, knowing that if the doppelganger had the tiniest fraction of the personality he was mimicking, he would turn and retaliate any moment now.

Unfortunately, being ready didn't save him, or any of the others.

The doppelganger screamed, presumably in response to Jean's mind-probe, and suddenly something took hold of Joseph's own fields and _yanked_. Current arced between him and the doppelganger, a deadly circuit that ran straight through Jean _and_ Rogue. Joseph screamed, fighting desperately to get control of the current, to wrench it away from the straight-line path between himself and the doppelganger, or shut it off. He flung himself sideways, moving the arc so it was no longer going through Jean, at least, but not far enough to get it away from Rogue before every muscle in his body locked into place, current moving within him from the pathways where it would be safe and controlled, shifting into his muscles and electrocuting him. Oddly, there wasn't very much pain-- he was just frozen, his nerves too overloaded to allow him to move.

"_Joseph! Stop!_" Storm was screaming at him. "You're killing her!"

"Break the circuit! Someone break the circuit!" Scott screamed. A wall of ice appeared in the path of the electrical arc, and melted almost immediately.

Frantically Joseph fought to regain control. His power was killing Rogue, the person he most cared for in the world at the moment, and he would make it stop or die trying. And then the circuit broke spontaneously, the doppelganger releasing his control over Joseph. A wall of magnetic force smashed outward, slamming the X-Men backward. Joseph, though staggered and dizzy from the attack before, compensated desperately, trying to protect his friends from being flung into the walls. The doppelganger went straight up, smashing through whatever remained of the ceiling.

Scott staggered to Jean's side even before the shockwave ended; Remy was already kneeling by Rogue. For a moment Joseph could see nothing but darkness. They were dead, they were dead and he had killed them, through his failure, his inability to get control back from the doppelganger. And then Scott spoke, his voice thick with relief. "Jean's alive. She's alive. She's just stunned."

"Thank God," Joseph said hoarsely. He felt on the verge of falling over. The forcible rerouting of his own energies had left him with a terrible headache, and a debilitating weakness and dizziness. He was almost afraid to ask. "And Rogue?"

"She all right. No thanks to _you_," Remy spat.

"Remy, enough. Clearly Joseph was not in control of what happened," Storm said. "That was your assailant from yesterday, Joseph?"

"I'm going after him."

"You're doing no such thing, mister. Whoever he is, you're obviously not a match for him," Cyclops snapped. "You're practically falling over already, and that's just from being used as a weapon against _us_. Don't you think he'd be able to do worse to you _without_ us to distract him?"

Of course. But it didn't matter. "He has used _my_ powers to harm those I care for," Joseph whispered harshly, looking down at the stunned forms of Jean and Rogue. Rogue was close to invulnerable, but she'd taken a _lot_ more current than Jean. "He has my face, he has my powers, and he claims to have my name. I _will_ have answers from him, and I will make him pay for what he's done to Rogue and Jean."

Cyclops shook his head. "Don't be an idiot!"

Perhaps the combat had left him so much on edge that he jumped at shadows. Certainly he couldn't see anything in Cyclops' eyes to telegraph what was about to happen. Yet somehow he knew, and spun, throwing up a force shield to block Psylocke's strike before it ever connected. Before any of the rest of the X-Men could also get the brilliant idea of knocking him out for his own good, Joseph took off, following the departing magnetic signature of the doppelganger.

He heard Cyclops shouting. "_Joseph!_ Cannonball, Storm! Go after that idiot and get him back here before he gets himself killed!" Poor Cyclops. He had to know that neither Cannonball nor Storm could come close to matching Joseph's speed. Jean or Rogue could have, but then, that was probably why the doppelganger struck at them. Joseph had to fight his way upward through gale-force winds, slowing him considerably, but he was enough faster than either Storm or Cannonball that it made no difference. His muscles ached terribly from the electrical attack, but up here his powers re-stabilized as he drew more of the Earth's magnetic energies into himself, so that the headache and the dizziness faded.

* * *

__

Next: Joseph gets his butt kicked. (Saw that coming, didn't you?)

* * *


	7. Chapter 6: In which Joseph takes on Magn...

**Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 6**

**Rotating Disclaimer: **_Thanks to [Chris Delaney][1] and [Link][2], my physics advisors, I have rewritten the fight scene to be a little more in keeping with real world physics. Any errors that remain are my fault! Or they're Marvel's. Hard to tell._

***

His duplicate was making no attempt to conceal himself from Joseph. Joseph soared into the stratosphere after him, putting on a serious burst of speed as soon as he was clear of Storm's winds. The ground below was invisible under a layer of clouds, and the air thin enough that he had to hold air from below to him in a bubble, when he drew even with the doppelganger. 

The man slowed, matching speed with Joseph. "Are the X-Men fools, to send you after me? Or is this your own idea?"

He was shouting, to be heard over the wind and the terrible thinness of the air here, but what Joseph heard was barely audible-- he could only tell the man was shouting because he looked like he was. Joseph responded in kind, shouting to be heard.

"You used my powers to attack the X-Men." Joseph stared at the man with his best grimly forbidding expression. "Perhaps you truly _didn't_ intend to harm me, at the beginning, but your actions hardly bode well for that."

"I seem to recall that they attacked me first."

Which was true, but hardly relevant. Nothing mattered but the fact that the man had struck down and nearly killed Rogue with Joseph's power. Joseph had been preparing for this the whole flight up here, concentrating and readying his energies. Now, without further warning, he matched and disrupted the doppelganger's field, and in that moment of disruption struck at him with lightning.

The responding explosion of power, as his strike surged through the other and triggered a violent discharge of energy, flung him some distance from his doppelganger, who began to fall, clearly stunned. For a moment Joseph watched him fall, wondering-- _playing possum?_ But he couldn't afford to let the man die. He swooped in and grasped him, lifting him with his power.

It was a mistake. Perhaps the other _was_ playing possum, or perhaps the touch of Joseph's fields revitalized him. He duplicated what Joseph had just done, matching and canceling Joseph's fields, and continuing to match his polarity as Joseph desperately tried to shift away from his. He released the man and fell, losing his oxygen bubble in the process. The air here was thick with ozone-- though Joseph was used to the smell of ozone, this was overpowering, and made the thin air essentially unbreathable.

The doppelganger didn't pursue his advantage, fleeing instead. Joseph put a ridiculous amount of power, and speed, into a dive for lower atmosphere to collect more oxygen, wondering how the doppelganger had managed to avoid having to do that-- electricity could cause oxygen to become ozone, perhaps some manipulation of magnetic fields could split it back out into oxygen again? He'd have to test that. Later. Right now he was utterly focused on collecting more breathable air, and then zooming back up after the doppelganger, focusing enormous amounts of power on his shield to protect himself from friction heat as he traveled at thousands of miles an hour. The doppelganger, apparently unable or unwilling to expend such power on travel, was traveling at less than Mach 2, so Joseph caught up with him quickly enough.

By now they were effectively out of atmosphere entirely, 80 miles above the surface of the Earth by Joseph's estimation. This far up, they couldn't speak to each other-- their oxygen was contained entirely inside their fields, and sound could not transmit through the vacuum between them. Nevertheless, when Joseph drew even with the man again it was easy enough to read his lips. "Persistent, aren't you, boy?"

He didn't expect his double would be able to understand him, but he responded anyway. "You tried to kill Rogue, butcher! I will hound you into death if I must, but I will see you pay for that!"

This time he was entirely prepared for the attempt to disrupt him. He shifted his own polarity rapidly and kept changing it, fast enough to stay just barely ahead of the doppelganger's attempt to match and cancel it. This took all his concentration, though, and by now he was beginning to tire, having expended much of his personal energies in getting to this point. After pushing him to stay barely ahead of the disrupting wave for a good minute or so, the doppelganger simply gave up and fled, and for a moment Joseph was too dizzy from the rapid shifting of his personal field to realize it. By the time he did, the doppelganger had a good head start again. Grimly Joseph smiled. Running away again? _And you wanted to convince me you are the real Magneto?_ He followed, as once again the doppelganger went up, away from Earth.

And flew at full speed directly into a field of space debris. The debris-- some of it pieces of satellites, some of it chunks of meteor in Earth orbit-- were almost all ferrous, and the doppelganger had magnetized all of them and set them spinning, generating a dozen conflicting fields. He could no longer see the doppelganger's field so clearly-- which was the idea, no doubt. It was cleverly done-- Joseph had been too intent on pursuing his double to notice the man flinging power out to magnetize space debris. Many of the pieces had decided that they loved Joseph's polarity and were spontaneously flinging themselves at him, and when he repelled them, that action drew others. It took a minute or two to clear away enough of the debris, and account for it in his mental map of the magnetic fields, that he could find his double again. 

By the time he did, it was almost too late. An enormous chunk of ferrous rock was bearing down on him at immense speed. While the rock was exquisitely susceptible to his power, it had so much mass and momentum that it took all of Joseph's power to deflect it back into space, back toward the double, who easily dodged out of its way since it was moving much more slowly now that Joseph had deflected it. For a moment Joseph was drained, vulnerable, and in that moment the doppelganger matched him and popped his shields like they were a soap bubble.

Before, down in the stratosphere, the air had been thin and rancid with ozone. Here, there just wasn't any air to speak of at all. The oxygen his field had been holding to him dispersed, as did his protection against the intense ultraviolet radiation of this region. Though his tolerance for EM radiation was much higher than human, levels this high could burn even him without a magnetic field to protect him, and while he could get his shields back up to protect from that-- and did-- it was too late to prevent at least a first-degree sunburn, and far too late to retrieve his air.

He realized he was defeated. The double's shields were still up, and while Joseph could try to concentrate on popping them too, and leaving the other in the same boat as him, he probably had only a minute or two of consciousness left before anoxia got him. He dove for Earth, and the thickness of sweet atmosphere over a hundred miles below.

The double grabbed him back.

Joseph strained at the power that held him, trying to find its weak points and disrupt it. As before, it kept changing, shifting too rapidly for him to compensate. The double clearly intended to kill him-- or at least knock him out-- by holding him here until his oxygen ran out. By Joseph's calculations, the double couldn't have much more than a few minutes of air left to him either-- his force bubble was bigger than Joseph's had been, with more air in it to begin with, but sooner or later it would run out. Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen nearly as quickly as Joseph would suffocate. With all his strength, he grabbed at the debris he'd shoved aside earlier and started flinging it at the other, hoping to distract him enough to be able to bring down _his_ shields, or else break free. 

It wasn't working. The man was simply and easily deflecting the debris. Spots of gray were starting to dance in Joseph's vision, and he could hear a roaring sound. He concentrated everything he had on breaking the other's grip, fighting with desperate fury. It was no longer possible to hold his breath, but when he exhaled he couldn't draw in anything more, literally could not fill his lungs with anything at all. They felt flat, his chest concave. _Collapsed._ His struggles to breathe became as frantic as his struggles to free himself. Burning pain shot through his chest, and more and more of a bubbling liquid feeling, and he tasted blood in his mouth. Alveoli in the lungs were rupturing, either from the vacuum or the strain he was placing on them by trying to breathe. If he didn't break free soon he wouldn't have to worry about suffocating-- he would drown in the blood in his lungs. He struck with all the power he had, hitting out against the weak points of the fields that held him--

--and he did it. He tore free.

He rocketed downward, putting on as much speed as he could manage. The world had started to go black around the edges. It didn't matter. If he could only hit air he would be safe, he would live--

--and something grabbed him again, yanking him back like a fish on a line, pulled out of air to suffocate in the cold of space.

With the last of his strength, Joseph attacked the double. But he was long past the point where desperation and adrenaline could substitute for oxygen and a clear head. The last thing he saw was his opponent absorbing harmlessly the energies he'd flung to free himself and save his life, and then his oxygen-starved brain gave out on him and he knew that, after a lifetime of struggling, he _would_ indeed die this way. And then the double's hands reached for him, and then there was nothing.

* * *

Magnus dropped into atmosphere with his unconscious burden as fast as he could, fast enough that Joseph had only been unconscious for a few seconds before they were once again in lower atmosphere, where the air was breathable. The boy's fields had dropped to a low ebb as he lost consciousness; there was nothing anymore to prevent Magnus from reaching in and artificially keeping him unconscious by manipulating the electrical fields of his brain while he performed mouth-to-mouth. There wasn't enough blood to prevent Joseph from breathing on his own again, finally, but far too much for Magnus' liking. It had never been his intent to kill Joseph.

_None of this would have been necessary if you hadn't lost control, old man. If you had found some other way to disable them and flee, if you had taken into account that the boy would likely bring his friends, if you hadn't panicked when the red-haired witch tried to attack your mind._ He shook his head. And to think he had tried so hard to let the boy simply exhaust himself and give up. He could curse Joseph for being so damnably stubborn, for refusing to simply give up and let Magnus fly away unmolested, and for forcing the confrontation until Magnus had to half-kill him to stop him, but the boy came by his stubbornness honestly, after all. No point in cursing him for doing exactly what Magnus himself would have done under similar circumstances. Magnus liked to think he would show a little bit more sense in attacking an opponent who was clearly so much more skilled than he was, but then he remembered what he'd tried to do to Onslaught. No, Joseph's actions were written in stone from the moment Magnus used his energies to stun his friends. Particularly the girl with the stripe in her hair. Her reaction when she'd thought Magnus was threatening Joseph, and Joseph's consistent reactions to her being in danger, indicated that she might well be more than a friend-- certainly plausible; she was a beautiful girl, definitely the kind Magnus himself would be interested in if he felt himself capable of being interested in anyone anymore. And if that were true, Magnus had made a rather bad tactical error in attacking her. 

Ah well. Either Joseph would accept his apologies once he accepted the truth, or he wouldn't. It would be painful to be hated by his own double, but then, apparently his son hated him, his daughter was dead but had hated him before he died, his best friend hated him, his best friend's students most especially hated him... this would be nothing new. There was only one person in the world that didn't hate him, and he was about to anger her terribly-- she had asked him for one thing, regarding his mission with Joseph, and he was about to deny her that.

Still. He couldn't let the boy die, or be permanently maimed. Even if he did hate Magnus forever, it hardly mattered. He was the only second chance Magnus was ever really likely to get, and his well-being rather more important than not angering Margaret-- she was swift both to become angry and to forgive, and he was fairly sure he could talk reason into her if he had to. As soon as he confirmed that Joseph was breathing again, albeit a bloody, bubbling, shallow breathing, he headed for California at high speed. 

* * *

Margaret, predictably, was not happy. 

"Hello? Is there still brain damage in there? All the work I did to put your brains back together, did someone knock you upside the head and break them apart again?" She spun away from him, pacing frenetically. "I asked you _one_ thing, just _one_ thing, that you don't get me involved with this crap, and what do you do?"

"What was I supposed to do, Margaret? There's blood in his lungs, and evidence of possible radiation burns. The damage may well be permanent without your aid."

"And I care why, exactly?"

He kept control of his temper. "Because I care. And you've repeatedly implied that that which concerns me is a concern to you as well."

"Why do _you_ care? You told the brat he isn't Magneto. That should have been the end of it."

"He is my genetic duplicate. I'd call a man with half my genes my brother, or my son. This one has all of them. Can I do less for him than I would for a brother or a son?"

"You certainly could. He's a hunk of cast-off protoplasm that happens to have your shape. Magnus, I _made_ him, the way you'd make a piece of machinery."

"And was it not you who told me that, having made him, you now recognize him as a person? I don't understand your difficulty."

"My _difficulty_ is that I didn't want to be involved with this nonsense at all!"

"And if I brought home a complete stranger and asked that you heal him, you would not?" He stared at her. "Margaret, I have seen the way you deal with your patients. Even though you are using them for financial and political gain, I cannot but see the care you take with them as anything other than a desire to heal. That _is_ your power."

Her eyes narrowed. "You are _so_ naive," she muttered, but reached for Joseph. "Put him on the table."

Magnus set him down, and winced as Margaret grabbed the boy's face, without any particular attempt at gentleness. He didn't understand it. She had never been anything other than tender and gentle with her patients. It was hard to reconcile the woman who could casually dismiss a young man as "a hunk of protoplasm" with the one who'd healed him and comforted him, forced him to confront his own memories with firm and implacable compassion and held him as he came up from them sobbing. Joseph's body twitched, jerking under her ministrations, and his face under her hand seemed to Magnus to be twisted in pain. "Is he suffering?" he asked sharply.

"He's unconscious. What do you think I am?" she retorted, but the twitching and facial spasms abated.

There were some powers that seemed to be morally dangerous. His own, which made it so very easy to kill at a distance. Charles', which must offer the constant temptation of rewriting other people's thoughts to conform to his desires. Mystery's was one of those. Magnus believed-- he was quite sure-- that she was basically a good person, ruthless from a harsh life but fundamentally not selfish. But her cavalier attitude toward bioethics deeply disturbed him. If one could create a human being with a touch, could one really comprehend how miraculous that creation was? Wouldn't one be inclined to dismiss one's achievement as routine and easy, the way he himself would dismiss the creation of a robot? 

It was obvious to Magnus from watching him, and from the brief interaction that they'd had, that the boy had a personality, and that it was distressingly similar to his own. He couldn't think of the boy as a "hunk of protoplasm"; his choices were to consider Joseph an abomination that had to be destroyed, or his son/brother/alter ego, and abominations didn't play soccer with their friends and laugh and frizz their hair beyond recognition so that they could keep a ball on their head while flying. He was too damnably normal, too much like the man Erik Lehnsherr might have grown into if the shadow of the Holocaust had not fallen across his life and consumed all that was good in it. 

_My second chance_, he thought again, and pushed it away. The boy was plainly himself, with his own life, not merely Magnus' innocent doppelganger. He could not browbeat the boy into playing the role he wanted Joseph to take; that would work about as well as trying to convince him not to attack, or not to pursue, had. He remembered the words from one of the books-- "He never saw us as people, certainly never saw us clearly enough to recognize us as his children. We were only tools, weapons for him to use for his cause, and if we made the mistake of having minds of our own, we paid for it, dearly." Wanda's words. Wanda was dead, and he had never met her, and it was a wound in his heart every time he saw her picture. How _could_ he have failed to recognize her as his child, when she looked like Magda reborn? He'd lost her, lost Pietro, apparently by treating them as objects instead of recognizing them as people with minds and agendas of their own. And Joseph was far too much like him to tolerate that kind of treatment nearly as long as Wanda and Pietro apparently had. _Stubborn young fool. And a stubborn old fool. A matched set. We are identical opposites, twin poles, but I've yet to see if we will attract or repel._ Manipulating magnetic fields was far, far easier than influencing the polarity of another's desires. Well, he would see.

Margaret released Joseph. "He'll be ravenous when he wakes up, and probably awfully thirsty as well. Are you going to take him back to the X-Men right away, or what?"

"I went rather out of my way to talk to him, and our conversation was interrupted. Judging from the tenacity with which he pursued me, I believe he, too, would rather we talked before I sent him back. So no. Do you have any sort of power suppressant fields here?"

"I got your power suppressants right here," Margaret said, holding up her hands. She touched Joseph's head again, more lightly this time, her fingers burying themselves in his hair. "There's a neurotransmitter, catalysine, found only in mutants. Do you remember?"

He nodded. Another of the things he knew and had no recollection of learning. "The substrate of mutant power. But have a care, Mystery. I seem to recall that my own powers aren't wholly dependent on catalysine."

She nodded. "You generate power without it, but you can't manipulate that power at all. You turn into a battery for the use of others, blocked entirely from the use of your own energies. In the long run the absence of catalysine would eat you alive if something didn't drain off the energies. In the short run, however, if I strip all the catalysine out of his brain, it'll take him a day or two to replace it all and then he'll be fine. Will you need longer than that?"

"A day or two should be fine. Will there be any side effects?"

"Yeah. Don't let him handle videotapes without insulated gloves. As long as you don't get him seriously pissed or seriously frightened, his energies will be at a low ebb without the feedback of catalysine to kick him into higher EM production, and obviously you can bleed him off if he does start getting excitable, but actually letting him touch magnetic media will be a bad idea."

"You can't simply suppress the ability to generate electromagnetic energies?"

"Sure, but I'm not going to. A temporary lack of catalysine will fix itself. A temporary disruption of the electromagnetic pathways and the generation matrix probably won't, and then I'd have to come in again, and either he'd see me or you'd have to knock him out first, which doesn't sound like what you want to do. I want to stay _out_ of this, Magnus."

"Why? Are you afraid of his reaction to you?"

"I'm not interested in being his mommy and less in being his creator. I met some of your Savage Land Mutates, you know. A more fucked-up bunch of losers it would be hard to find. They were abandoned by their creator, and turned seriously weird as a result. As far as I'm concerned, if Joseph wants a creator he can go look for God. And if he wants a mommy, he can advertise in the papers. I have no use for him anymore."

That sounded stranger the more often she said it. There was something there, some reason Margaret was rejecting Joseph so vehemently, he felt sure, but he couldn't begin to guess what. Really, he knew very little about her. Given what she knew about him, that hardly seemed equitable, but he wasn't going to push it. All he did know was that she had been through her own variety of hell, as he had been, and that she had known him once, clearly during the time period he had no memories for. She didn't want to talk about it, and remembering how silent he had been on the subject of his own experiences, he could hardly blame her. She knew what she knew because he'd told her-- most of it when he was coming up from another session with nightmare, weeping or screaming or simply shaking with reaction, and he had to speak of it or go mad. Some of it, he might have told her in the forgotten time, but while he got the impression from her that he had been more open then than in the life he did remember, he couldn't imagine ever having confided all that much in anyone. 

"I will put him in my old room. Is there anything he should be eating?"

"The usual. Iron. Protein. He's more than a little on the anemic side, so he should clearly be eating more iron anyway."

"He might not know he has to."

"Probably doesn't. Ah well, when he passes out in the middle of a mission I guess the X-Men will know better than to keep people's dietary requirements from them, won't they?"

That hardly sounded like something students of Charles would do. "They probably don't know. I can't imagine I advertised such a thing. A heightened need for dietary iron is small, as weaknesses go, but it's still a weakness and I can't imagine sharing such a thing with my enemies."

"Good point. We done here? I've got work to do."

He hesitated. The tone of her voice was far more brusque than he was used to from her. "I'm on your list now, aren't I?"

Margaret laughed. "My shit list, you mean?"

"The list of people you would prefer not to talk to at the moment, at any rate."

"You know, I _did_ only ask you for one simple favor, and you _did_ utterly screw it up."

"I would prefer to remain off the list if possible. What will you accept as amends?"

"I don't know, Magnus. I think I need to see some serious groveling here."

"Then you're doomed to disappointment, because I don't grovel. What about black and white cookies from a New York bakery instead?"

"Ooh, you're ruthless." She pressed her hands to her abdomen. "Right through the stomach. But I don't know. I haven't had a good black and white cookie in ages, but it's been even longer since I had real Italian food without cooking it myself..."

"You drive a hard bargain, woman. Dinner in New York City? An expensive Italian restaurant, and a trip to a bakery?"

"And dancing?"

"Come now, you make it sound like I accidentally destroyed your computer again, or something equally heinous."

"I'm a New Yorker. If I didn't push my luck, how could I maintain my reputation?"

"Your abominable accent would give a hint."

"This from the man who can't decide whether he's from Germany, Russia or Israel?"

"You forgot Poland. And Brazil. And the Ukraine, which is not in fact Russia."

"There is so not any Brazil in your accent."

"Besides, my accent is attractive. Yours merely makes you sound like a cab driver."

"You're living in the past again, Magnus. Cabbies don't speak English anymore."

"And what you speak is English?"

"It's Brooklynese. And it's very faint. You're just a snob who learned to speak English from some damn Brits or something."

He laughed. "Of course I'm a snob, and so are you. We are merely snobbish about different things." With his power he lifted Joseph off the table. The young man was indeed a little too pale; it was hard to see under his tan, which was considerably darker than Magnus' had been in years, but there wasn't enough red in his coloring. "I shall see to Joseph. Go see to your work."

"I _am_ going to hold you to that dinner date."

"I wouldn't dream of reneging."

* * *

_Next: It's Two Stubborn Men With Egos The Size Of California, head to head in verbal combat!_

   [1]: mailto:all_father_woden@yahoo.com
   [2]: mailto: hhkyl@uclink2.berkeley.edu



	8. Chapter 7: In which Magnus attempts to p...

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 7 ****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 7

Rotating Disclaimer: _ Marvel owns everyone in this chapter but insists on making them do mean things to each other. Also, it bears repeating that in this story, nothing that takes place after about UXM #340 occurs, including retcons. Thus, Magneto's real name is still Erik Lehnsherr, though neither of them are going to use it anytime soon._

***

Joseph opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling of a wholly unfamiliar room.

_I know this place._ Not the room-- he'd never been here before within his memory, he was sure. But this physical location, this node on the planetary electromagnetic grid, was naggingly familiar. That surprised him. He had been to places Magneto had been-- the mansion, for instance-- and never felt this sense of half-recognition before. Perhaps it was related to what Jean had talked about, the fact that most of his adult memories were literally erased and not just inaccessible-- but he was quite positive that Magneto hadn't gone to America until he was an adult, long past the point where even the few fragments Jean had been able to recover for Joseph stopped, and this was North America, beyond a doubt. Joseph concentrated, trying to narrow it down. Southern California, or northwestern Mexico, he thought. Maybe New Mexico, but he didn't think he was that far east. His directional sense wasn't precise in a place he'd never been before-- or in this case, a place he couldn't quite remember when he'd been before-- but when he tried to send out a scanning wave to locate himself more precisely, nothing happened.

That jolted him. He sat up, and the world spun around him. Dizzy and weak, and very hungry, but his lungs didn't hurt at all. Something had healed him. He had no reliable way to tell how much time had passed, though it felt like he hadn't eaten in a day or two. Hadn't drunk either-- his lungs didn't hurt, but his throat felt cracked and dry, and there was the bone-deep thirst that came from losing too much fluid. A carafe of water and a glass, both plastic, sat next to the bed he was lying on. Shaking slightly, he poured himself a glass of water, spilling a little bit of it.

His powers didn't work. He could see EM fields as clearly as ever, and with that sight he could see that he was still generating a low-energy resting field, but he had no conscious control over it, or any other electromagnetic energies, at all. But he wasn't wearing a collar, and he knew, without having the faintest idea how he knew, that power suppression fields should either not work on him at all or should shut him down completely. This bizarre partial ability was something he was going to have to investigate, assuming he lived; most of his research lately into ways to shut mutant powers down had been focused on ways to turn off particular subsystems of power without shutting them all down, in particular ways to turn off Rogue's absorption ability without endangering her by cutting off her strength or invulnerability. If whatever his captors were using on him could be adapted to help Rogue... 

...but then, that assumed he would live through this, and he wasn't quite certain why he was still alive in the first place. Surely keeping the real Magneto alive was a liability if your plan was to replace him with a duplicate. Unless the idea was to interrogate him to get whatever information they could to perfect the disguise, a thought which struck Joseph as terribly amusing. Even if he told them anything, an unlikely occurrence in the first place, the idea of someone using _his_ knowledge to try to perfect a Magneto impersonation was ludicrous. Of course, as soon as they figured that out they would most likely kill him, and before that time he could probably expect torture, or a psi-probe, which for him was basically the same thing. So it wasn't really funny.

There was a source of electromagnetic energy approaching him, at about the speed of a human walking. It was low-level, about the same strength and intensity as his own resting field-- in fact, it was nearly identical to his resting field, which certainly gave it away what it was. Joseph flattened himself against the wall behind the door. He was still weak and hungry, but functional, and against someone who had his powers while he himself didn't he would likely only get one chance. There was nothing he could use as a weapon in the room-- the plastic carafe was too light, and the only other things in the room were blankets and pillows-- but he'd been in fights with his bare hands before. Admittedly, never since waking up in South America with amnesia, but Jean's probe had raised images of himself as a child, being yelled at by his father for getting into yet another fight, and he suspected the bone-deep memories would be there for him, the knowledge of what to do as soon as he started to try to do it.

He hoped, anyway.

The door opened, and the doppelganger stepped inside. Joseph swung his fists into the other's face, as hard as he could. 

The blow bounced harmlessly off the other's shield, a shield that hadn't been there the moment Joseph began the swing. The double gave him a hard look, and Joseph found himself staggering backward, a wall of force pushing him back into the center of the room. The door swung shut behind the double. "Is that enough, now?" the man asked, in German. Joseph recognized the specific dialect-- he had never spoken it since his awakening, but it was, in fact, his native language, the tongue of wherever it was that he'd grown up. "You've made your futile attempt, will you now finally stop fighting and listen to reason?"

Joseph stepped backward, hands up in a useless fighting stance. "Why am I alive?" he asked harshly, in the same language.

"Because you aren't dead, I would imagine."

"That is not an answer!"

The man looked startled, then laughed. "You _are_ like me. Even knowing what you are, I didn't entirely expect to hear my own words out of your mouth. No, you're quite right, you deserve a better answer than that. You are alive because it was never my intent to kill you, nor does it serve any purpose I might conceivably imagine to do so. Though you certainly did try your best to force me to it."

Joseph's eyes narrowed. "What is it to be, then? An attempt to brainwash me? To extract any useful information I might possess from my mind, to complete your impersonation? Or do you somehow need access to me in order to maintain my shape and my powers?"

"Actually, I thought I would feed you, and then see if you'd listen to a rational explanation of what you are, and I am." A package wrapped in tinfoil floated toward Joseph. Joseph stared at it without any move to take it. He was hungry enough that the sight of something that was clearly supposed to be food set his mouth watering, even though he had no idea what it was... but he was wary.

"What is it?"

"A roast beef sandwich." The doppelganger looked at him and sighed. "Boy, you have been unconscious in my care for two hours, now. If I'd wanted to drug or poison you, there were far easier ways to do it than put it in your food."

He had a point. Joseph took the tinfoil-wrapped sandwich, unwrapped it, and broke it in half. The doppelganger's magnetic field was not powerful enough anymore to disguise the patterns of bioelectricity running up and down the spinal column and through the brain. This was a living creature, not some sort of robot. Of course it could be a living creature with a healing factor, but he could only take the precautions he could take. Joseph handed half to the doppelganger. "Eat this."

"I just told you--"

"I won't eat if you don't. There may be something in it that needs to be introduced with food, or some other thing I'm not taking into account."

"Oh, for the love of God," the man muttered. "Very well." He took a bite of the sandwich from the middle, and a second bite from the crust side. Then he handed it back. "Are you satisfied?"

It was as close to proof of the sandwich's innocuousness as he was going to get, and he had no idea how long he was going to be held prisoner-- it would be foolish to refuse all food. Joseph took the sandwich half from his alter ego's hands, and ate, disciplining himself not to wolf it down like a starving animal. It was exactly the way he liked roast beef sandwiches, which frightened him. Knowing how to use his powers better than he himself did was one thing. But knowing him well enough to know just how he liked his food? "Talk, if that's what you've come for," he said between finishing the sandwich half and starting the second half.

"I will be blunt, then, since you don't seem to have grasped what I tried to tell you before your friends came and attacked me. You are not Magneto. I am, or was. You are a clone, with a partial copy of my memories."

"I grasped--" Talking with his mouth full. Joseph hastily gulped down the bite of sandwich still in his mouth. "I _grasped_ what you were trying to tell me. I simply didn't believe it. What proof do you have?"

"What proof do you need? I have beaten you in combat with our powers-- three times now. I am, plainly, older than you. You admit that you suffer from a loss of memories. If one of us is a duplicate of the other-- and it's obvious that one of us must be-- I am obviously the one with the greater claim to being the original."

"Hardly," Joseph retorted. "If you were copied from me when I had all my memories and looked my true age-- or at the least, as old as you look-- it would only make sense that you would look older and have greater knowledge of how to use your powers. I don't know what happened to me to make me lose my memories and years off my apparent age, but given the things I do know have happened to other people, such a thing is far from implausible. In fact, I'm given to understand that I've lost years off my age before, which would explain why _you_ look forty and not sixty."

"Occam's Razor would argue against your theory, boy," the doppelganger said. Joseph was beginning to get really, really tired of being called "boy." Just because he _looked_ barely out of his teens didn't mean he actually _was._ "Your explanation invokes more complications than mine-- my version explains your age and amnesia, while yours simply states that they aren't that implausible."

"Your explanation does no such thing. If I were the sort of clone who's created to be a precise doppelganger, I should look the same age as you. If I were the sort who's created as an infant, then either I should _be_ an infant, or I was created some twenty-odd years ago and we would still need to account for my amnesia. And _your_ explanation doesn't account for the fact that you don't know the X-Men's names." Joseph smiled fiercely, triumphant. "If I'm not the real Magneto, then the real Magneto should certainly know the names of his greatest enemies. You called one who I have reason to believe Magneto knew well 'the flying young woman.'"

"Did you know her name, when you were still living in South America?"

"I hadn't met her yet."

"Yes, you had, if you were Magneto. You say I cannot be the real Magneto because I do not know the girl's name. It's true that I don't know her name, but did you know her name before you met her? Met her as Joseph, I mean? Did you look at her and suddenly recognize her as a figure from your past?"

"Well, no--"

"I thought not. So if the true Magneto would know her name due to past interactions with her, then both of us are disqualified."

Joseph shook his head. "I have amnesia, if you'll recall correctly."

"Indeed. And I, too, am missing a large piece of my memories, but unlike you I do remember who I am. I am missing time, not my entire identity."

"I know who I am."

"No, you don't. In more senses than simply believing you are Magneto when you're not. You don't even know who Magneto was, truly. You know what you've been told, but you plainly know nothing of Magneto's life. Have you even read the books?"

Joseph frowned. "Books? What books?"

"I'll take that to mean 'no.' This is the difference between us, Joseph. I remember my family, and their deaths. I remember the camps, and fleeing them with Magda. I remember my daughter's death, and my friendship with Charles Xavier, and the work I undertook to serve justice and hone my skills for the struggle ahead. What I do not remember is what happened after I decided to become a terrorist-- anything belonging to the publicly known career of Magneto. What do _you_ remember?"

_Shadows, and fragments._ "I have no proof that you know anything that isn't publicly available. _I_ know that Magneto was incarcerated in a concentration camp, that his wife's name was Magda, that he was friends with Charles Xavier once. If you want to prove that you're Magneto, you'll have to prove that you know something that _isn't_ public knowledge."

The man's face twisted in sudden rage, and his magnetic field intensified by several orders of magnitude. Involuntarily Joseph took a step back, suddenly realizing at a gut-deep level why Rogue, or anyone, had feared him. "You _demand_ to know something the world does not?" he asked. "You refuse to believe that I am the true Magneto until I tell you something I have told no one else? And pray tell, Joseph, how would _you_ know anything I haven't told anyone else, with your near-complete absence of memory?" 

The power levels radiating from the man were enough to fling a tank, intense enough that they were leaking out into his visible aura, making him glow. "I could tell you of the time my partner and I lifted a body from the pile in the chamber, to carry it to the crematorium, and it was my uncle, his body curled uselessly around my little cousin as if he'd tried to protect his son with his last breath, and failed. I could tell you of the awful bargain I made with one of the kapos, my second night in Auschwitz, to preserve my life, but what good would it do to tell you _any_ of this when you remember none of it?"

He advanced on Joseph, who held his ground despite an overwhelming instinctive need to back away. If he was to be killed, physical proximity wouldn't make a bit of difference. The double went on. "Do you remember standing by Charles' side in the bar fight, suspecting that if you were not so drunk you would probably do the sensible thing and drag him out of there, and privately rejoicing that you were too drunk to be so sensible? Do you remember teasing Marya about her historical romances, and reading the love scenes out loud at the dinner table for revenge because she kept making rude comments while you were trying to listen to a radio play? Do you remember Anya looking up at the stars and asking what they were, and remembering doing the same thing with Father, and you vowed--" his voice, which had begun the tirade thick with rage, was beginning to break with some other emotion, and there was a suspicious brightness in his eyes-- "you vowed you would do better than he had, you vowed you would not let yourself be killed and leave her alone to a cold universe, and instead you failed far more terribly than he had, you held her tiny burnt body in your hands and buried her, and all your hopes with her--" He cut himself off, and Joseph knew exactly why. The doppelganger's voice sounded just like his own did, when he was just barely balanced this side of weeping. 

The man's words evoked memories just like Jean's psi-probe had, but naturally, without the sense of pain and violation that had brought. "'The stars,'" Joseph whispered, barely trusting his own voice, "'are just like the sun, but very, very far away. They're like giant gas lamps, burning in outer space, and if you flew there as fast as an airplane could fly, you couldn't get there for hundreds and hundreds of years. And maybe one of those sun-stars has a planet going around it, just like Earth, and maybe there's a little boy, an alien little boy, on one of those planets, pointing up at the sky and asking, "Papa, what are stars?", right now.'"

The other one's eyes had gone wide. "You-- do remember?"

Joseph nodded, slowly. "Father said that. When I, you, whoever, whichever of us it was, we were, what? Five? Six? And then-- and then Anya asked the same thing-- and it was an alien little girl, but it was the same, we said the same thing, we'd remembered after all those years--" He swallowed. Curious, this. He'd never had an image this clear. Jean's mindprobe seemed to have broken the amnesia in some ways-- the fragments that were actually there, as opposed to the things Jean claimed had been wiped forever, were clearer now than they'd ever been. "And I said to Father, I said when I grew up I was going to be an astronaut and go off into space and meet that alien little boy, and he laughed and said maybe I would, maybe I would..."

"Whereas Anya was more interested in asking why it was dark at night. I remember. Do you?"

"Why it was dark at night? No, but I remember her asking about different languages, and why was it that the word for 'dog' was different in German and in Russian, and could she have a puppy?" He shook his head. "Did I ever get her one?"

"No, you-- I-- Magda and I, we couldn't afford a dog. I was... going to become an engineer, and we'd move to Paris, we'd bribe someone for the papers once we had the money, and then, I promised Anya she could have her puppy." The doppelganger took a deep breath. "So. It seems you remember more than I thought you do. Enough to satisfy you, then, that my lack of knowledge of things such as the X-Men's identities does not mean that I got all my knowledge of Magneto out of a handful of books? That I don't merely have more of the skills of Magneto than you do, I have more of the memories as well?"

Joseph sighed. He wasn't out of this yet. He had to push aside the emotional storm the memories had begun to summon, and deal with the present. "I'll concede that, however you got Magneto's memories, you got more of them than I have," he said. "Which _could_ mean that you are the original, and I the copy. It could, however, also mean that you were copied before my mind was wiped. You could stand there and recite my entire life story to me, and it wouldn't prove that it's your life story and not mine."

The other clenched his fists. "Damn you, boy, _why_ must you be so stubborn?" He fixed Joseph with a suspicious glare. "Why do you cling so hard to the thought of being Magneto? Do you _want_ to be Magneto? Does my past, the hardships you cannot remember, seem _romantic_ to you somehow?"

That infuriated Joseph. He stepped forward, half-intending to grab the other and shake him, before it sank in that this was a bad idea. Instead, he checked himself, but his own fists clenched. "Do I _want_ to be Magneto?" he repeated disbelievingly. "Want to be a mass murderer with the blood of more than ten thousand on my hands? Why, do _you_ want such a thing? I want nothing more than to be free of that burden, to _know_ and know it to be true that the blood is not on _my_ hands, that I am not responsible for death and madness and painting mutantkind as monsters in the eyes of the world. If that were true-- if I could _know_ it to be true-- it would change everything. These past months, I have endured things I would _never_ have voluntarily submitted to, except that I felt I deserved them, that I needed to atone for my crimes. If I haven't committed those crimes at all--" He thought of how the original X-Men treated him, how even Rogue often dismissed his contributions and had attacked him for wanting to know more of his past. All the times he'd swallowed his pride, accepted their treatment of him as a monster barely deserving of a chance at redemption, because that was what he was. But if he wasn't... "It would change everything," he repeated. "But I would need to _know_. I can't simply believe what I want to believe, because if I allow myself to believe I'm not Magneto when I truly am, if I don't seek to atone when I truly do have such crimes on my conscience... I can't allow that. So I can't trust you. You could be lying, or deluded. And besides, if you are the true Magneto it makes no sense that you would simply want to talk to me and convince me of that fact, without trying to recruit me to your cause or bend me to your will."

"Whereas you're clearly spending all your time trying to recruit me to _your_ cause or bend me to your will."

"That's different."

"Aside from the fact that I am the initiator of this little conversation, how so?"

Joseph stared at his double, hard. "I have seen enough to know that Magneto was a monster, an evil man. The only thing I was, and remain, unable to reconcile-- I _know_ what I am. I have killed, far too easily... I am not a good man, nor an innocent one, whatever the X-Men may think. But I'm not a monster. I was never able to understand how simply losing my memories could have changed everything that I am, everything that I believe at the deepest core of myself. If _you_ are the real Magneto, and I am not, then the explanation is simple. I'm not a monster, because _you_ are. Which doesn't argue that I should believe anything you say."

"And what monstrous things have I done so far? Quite aside from the patent absurdity of refusing to believe I'm the real Magneto because if I were the real Magneto you couldn't believe me when I say I am, your theory doesn't seem to have much evidence to recommend it."

"You nearly killed two of the X-Men!"

The double sighed. "That was an accident."

"An _accident?_" Did this creature, whoever he really was, expect Joseph to _believe_ that?

"No. No, I misspoke myself. I should say, it was not what I intended." He walked over to the carafe of water and poured himself a glass. "None of this has come out as I intended. When I went to visit the X-Men, it was only to see what they had become-- I knew nothing of them, you understand, other than what I have read, but I know them to be Charles' students and I wanted to see what he had made of them. And then I saw you. I observed you for several minutes before you noticed me, trying to fathom what you might be-- I'm sure you of all people know how unsettling it is to see another version of yourself. When you noticed me, I stunned you only so that I'd have freedom to leave without the X-Men coming after me, as I wasn't sure, with the loss of the latter part of my life, I'd be able to defeat them. I wasn't sure how close my combat skills were to what they had once been, and I recognized none of them, knew none of their powers-- it was regrettable, and I think it set us on the wrong foot from the beginning, but I didn't feel I had a choice."

"You are not claiming to have created me?" Joseph asked skeptically.

"No. When I learned what you are-- I would never have willingly cloned myself, certainly never inflicted my memories on an innocent creation. And certainly never allowed him to run about believing himself to be Magneto, carrying the burden of guilt that should be mine alone. I determined to talk to you, to tell you what you are, and I tried to summon you in such a fashion that you'd come without the X-Men-- but you attacked me, and then you brought them--"

"They followed me. I didn't bring them."

"So I _didn't_ misread you, then. That's good to know-- it's unpleasant to think one does not know oneself." He smiled briefly. "You, I could defeat easily enough, and I found when the X-Men attacked that I did actually remember something of their powers and capabilities. The girl with the stripe in her hair, the one you say I have a history with-- she's invulnerable, isn't she? And she flies, and is enormously strong-- that much, I saw for myself."

"Yes, you did," Joseph replied guardedly. He wasn't going to give anything away about any of the X-Men or their powers if he could help it.

"I meant only to hold them all off until I'd figured out some way to defeat them, something that wouldn't involve hurting them. I had no desire to hurt them. But then you began harrying me, weakening my shields-- and then the mindwitch attacked me." His eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid that any intentions I had of sparing the X-Men hurt disappeared then. You may take this information back to your friends-- I do _not_ like telepathy. And I will always respond to a telepathic attack... badly. As you saw." He shook his head. "Even then, I had no real desire to kill them. I'd have held you in place and maintained the circuit exactly where it was if I'd wanted the red-haired witch dead. And the other girl, the striped one, could have flown in pursuit if I hadn't struck her down, and I knew she was invulnerable so I had to make sure of her. Then you pursued me, after I'd flung them all off, and kept pursuing me with a dogged persistence that I'd call moronic were it not that I'd have done the same thing in your place-- which makes it no less moronic, but I'm in no position to criticize you for it. I did nearly have to kill you, and for that I'm sorry. But after that display of persistence, I had no guarantee that even dispersing your oxygen would stop you-- I was sure you'd just return to atmosphere, get more air and then come back and intercept me en route." He sighed. "From your point of view, I'm sure I've done the unforgivable. I struck down your friends, and, I suspect, one that you love, and I used you as a weapon to do it. I've defeated you in combat three times, and if your pride is the smallest fraction of mine I _know_ too well how that stings. But looking back, I can't see how I could have done anything differently, not and expected to survive it."

Unfortunately, Joseph couldn't see how the other could have done anything differently either. He knew too well what it was like to be beset by people who wanted to kill you when you had no quarrel with them, didn't know them or their capabilities, and how you might find yourself using deadly force against them without ever having come to the decision that they should die, only because you were so harried that you couldn't hold back if you were to live. As much as Joseph wanted to hate him for what he'd done to Rogue, it was true that Rogue had been at the forefront of that attack, without listening to reason or the other's protestations that he didn't want to fight. Of course, Rogue had been that ready to attack because she'd thought Joseph was in danger-- but if he _hadn't_ been in danger, if it _was_ true that the man only wanted to talk, then it was Joseph's fault, because he'd made Rogue suspicious and brought her chasing after him. 

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Next: More talking magnetic heads.

As usual, send me any and all feedback. This series is a lot more flexible than some of my work, so feedback will have a bigger influence on its direction than on my other stories. Thanks, [Alara][1]. 

****

Places you can go!

[Part Eight of "Journeyman of Magnetism"][2]

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   [1]: mailto:alara@mindspring.com
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   [5]: /magneto.html
   [6]: /aleph.html



	9. Chapter 8: In which Joseph reluctantly c...

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 8 ****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 8

Rotating Disclaimer: _Marvel still owns all these characters. They have not yet sold them to Alara Rogers so far as I know, nor to you either. None of us are allowed to make money off them. We will keep you updated on this fast-breaking story._

***

But this was nonsense. If the man was Magneto, he was a monster and Joseph shouldn't find himself sympathizing with him. If he wasn't, then he was a liar, or at the least severely deluded. "So you are the wronged innocent, then?" he said sarcastically. "A curious claim for one who purports to be Magneto to make. Suppose you _are_ the real Magneto. What do you expect from me, approval? Do you want me to join your cause? Or are you simply here to convince me of your identity, and then, if I won't join you, kill me for refusing?"

"My cause?" The other laughed bitterly. "_Which_ cause? The cause of preparing myself to fight for my people in the inevitable war, which I seem to have sabotaged by precipitating that war? The cause of world domination, fighting the tyranny of humanity's bigotry by replacing it with my own tyranny? The cause of redeeming myself in the eyes of the world, which I sabotaged spectacularly by killing ten thousand people? I have no cause anymore, Joseph. I have had so many, in the time I cannot remember, and I seem to have ruined them all. The only one I would call _my_ cause, the one I remember holding, was the belief that sooner or later, humanity would turn on us, and that it was my duty to prepare for that war, to train myself and husband resources such that, when the war came, I could step in as a general and lead our kind to victory. Instead, apparently I changed my mind, took it into my head that the only safe path for mutantkind was one where we ruled over them with an iron fist, and _started_ the war before I or anyone else was truly prepared for it. Thus precipitating a history of internecine conflict and squabbling amongst mutantkind, making an enemy of the one man I most wanted and needed as an ally, and offering human bigots a convenient scapegoat and mutant bigots a convenient figurehead. They compare me to _Hitler!_ The evil that destroyed my life, the greatest evil I can _imagine_, and they compare me to that..." 

His voice dropped to a whisper. "And I cannot even say it is undeserved. When I look at what I did, what I _actually_ did versus what they claim I threatened to do, up to the events of Blackout Thursday, I can say, this was justified, wrong but an understandable mistake. 1,400 dead. Casualties of war. Men firing guns at me, men firing missiles at me, men in tanks and planes attacking me. I didn't kill civilians. It is perhaps frightening, that one man can conduct a war all by himself, but that is what I was doing and the casualties were within reason, for that." He shook his head, his face pale. "And then... and then, ten thousand dead. Men, women, children. Business travelers. The aged and sick. And I..."

He was giving voice to things Joseph himself had thought, things he'd tried desperately not to think about, though he couldn't really avoid it with people who were so quick to remind him. "And you _want_ to think you did all this, and not me?" he asked disbelievingly.

"It doesn't matter what I _want_, Joseph. As you yourself pointed out, if the crimes of Magneto are on my conscience, I cannot deny them or place the blame on anyone else. And I have rather good reasons to think that I _am_ the one they belong with. So no. I don't want your approval. I can't approve of myself, why should I expect such from you? And I don't want you to join my cause. I can't believe in _your_ cause, but given how little good any of my causes have done, perhaps the very fact that I can't believe in a cause and therefore don't fight for it means that it will succeed."

"That's far more defeatist than I'd expect from you."

"Expect from me?" The double smiled mockingly. "So now you have expectations of me? Doesn't that mean you have made a decision, as to who you think I am?"

"It doesn't matter who _I_ think you are. _You_ think you're Magneto, and you have enough of Magneto's memories and patterns of thinking to put on a very convincing impression. Is it true? I don't know-- I can do a convincing impression myself, when I want to. But being convinced that anything you could possibly do is going to end in failure is not one of Magneto's attitudes. Everything I _have_ learned of the man-- and everything I know of myself-- tells me that Magneto would _never_ admit to defeat. There _has_ to be something that can be done."

The doppelganger sighed. "Perhaps there is. I may see a path in a week, or a month, or a year. I have fallen to despair before, and always before I made my way back out of it; I suppose there's no reason to think this much different. But... it is only, I have apparently tried so many different things, and those I did not outright fail at were never good ideas to begin with." He sat down on the bed. "What I remember... I was so sure of myself, so arrogant in that surety. Twenty years ago I _knew_ what was going to happen. More and more of my people would be revealed to the world, until eventually humanity did what it has always done with the strange and the different. They would try to send us to the gas chambers, and we would fight back. _I_ would lead us in that fight, I would find Charles and persuade him to join my cause now that his dream had proven itself bankrupt, as I'd always known it would. And the two of us together would lead the battle against humanity, and we would fight, and we would win. And in the aftermath, we would be left the dominant species on this Earth, due to our evolutionary superiority; or, if not, we would claim part of the Earth for our own, and the rest of Earth's natives to live elsewhere. Perhaps we could take over North America. The people who live there can't claim any moral right to the territory, given they themselves took it from those who were there before them."

A lot of this sounded suspiciously like ideas Joseph had had before he'd met the X-Men. "So what happened?"

"Obviously, not what I thought would." He stared into emptiness. "I remember... the death of a dear friend, at the hands of one I trusted, and a single moment like a dark epiphany. The realization came to me that humanity was fundamentally corrupt, self-serving and stupid. _We_ were the next step of evolution, _we_ were the _ubermenschen_, our morality far superior to their petty, vicious little nationalistic squabbles. For their sake and our own, we had to rule them, and clearly I was the one best suited to do that... I, with Charles's help." 

He looked at Joseph. "Memory stops there. I can only assume Charles... didn't approve of the plan, and friendship became enmity. I must also assume that that particular demented vision stayed with me. I can't understand why. Isabelle was human. The pain of her loss, of knowing I'd once again failed to protect one I cared for, and the rage at the betrayal that allowed this... that could have deranged me for a time, but for years? Mutants are superior to humans in many ways, but one way we are _not_ is in our morality. We are far from above the petty squabbling that's characterized humanity from the dawn of time. I _knew_ that. I'd met few of our kind by then, but that I knew. I knew also I wouldn't have made a very good ruler. I simply don't like people enough. Mutants or humans... I prefer to be left alone. But that seems to be what I decided I would make my new life's work... so, apparently, I cast Charles aside, and started the war, and painted mutantkind as ravening monsters who seek to take humanity's place on this world to all humans, thus ensuring that even those who might have believed in peaceful coexistence were now convinced of the danger we represent, and that we must be killed or controlled." He stood up, pacing restlessly. 

"After that... after awakening to this new world, this world I helped create, and seeing what I have done to the dream I remember, how can I believe in myself? I don't think I've done _any_ good for mutantkind in all the twenty years I don't remember. I think I must have tried... I did surrender myself to stand trial so that I could be punished for my crimes and not my people... and then, miraculously, I was acquitted, a judgment that flies so in the face of what it looked like the judges planned for me that it looks to _me_ as if I somehow rigged it, and if it looks that way to _me_ who can blame humans for thinking so? Rioting broke out, anti-mutant sentiment worsened... and then I went back to terrorism again, spitting in the faces of those who'd held out hands in friendship and justifying everyone who believed me a monster. How could I possibly have made _worse_ decisions? I don't understand any of it. I'm not a stupid man... is it only with hindsight that these mistakes become so apparent? Why didn't I see any of this coming _before_ I did it?"

Hesitantly, Joseph said, "Does it feel... sometimes... as if it can't have been you? That so much of it was so stupid, or so malicious, that you simply can't imagine how it could have been you doing it?"

The other looked at him hard. "To be frank... no. No, it always has seemed like myself. Myself making an outrageously stupid mistake, myself doing things I can't quite fathom why I would have done, but... no, it was me. Why? Is that what it was like for you?"

"I... well, yes. It doesn't... it's _never_ felt like me." For the first time, Joseph began to seriously believe that the man might really be Magneto. He would have thought the other would have shared that sense of disconnection, the feeling of being caught up in a nightmare where you realize suddenly you have done things that you would never do, only it wasn't a nightmare and he could never awaken from it. The other seemed to share his horror of the things Magneto had done. He knew a lot more about them-- Joseph had had no idea Magneto had surrendered himself to stand trial-- but he claimed to have forgotten them equally as thoroughly. The sense of disconnection, that another man had committed those crimes, _should_ have applied to him just as much. The only reason Joseph could think of that that wouldn't be true would be if both of them _knew_, somehow, deep down in their souls below the level of memory, who they really were-- and the other was, indeed, really Magneto, and Joseph really wasn't.

"You realize, of course, the most likely reason for this."

"Yes." Joseph took a deep breath. "But it isn't _proof_, Magnus." And realized, as he heard his own voice speaking the name, that proof or no, some part of him had already decided. But he couldn't give in to that-- he had so many reasons to want to believe, so many reasons to deceive himself. "I can accept, provisionally, that _maybe_ you're the original Magneto, and I'm a clone. But I need more than my own vague feelings that I didn't commit Magneto's crimes, and your statement that you feel you did. To begin with, if I _am_ a clone, who created me and why?"

Magnus looked uncomfortable. "I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"I have sworn to keep a confidence, and that confidence includes your creator's name and the reason. I will tell you this: you've fulfilled the purpose you were designed for already, or so I'm told. You are your own man, burdened with no hidden purpose, no secret agendas to be fulfilled. At least, I am told this, by one I have some reason to trust."

Interesting that Magnus should choose to tell him that. It hadn't occurred to Joseph that, if he was a clone, and therefore created for some purpose, that that purpose might still affect his life. Perhaps it was his arrogance-- Joseph invariably assumed that he was in control of his own destiny. Or perhaps it was just that the clone thing hadn't sunk in. Part of him was yearning eagerly toward the thought that he might not be Magneto, but to believe that he'd have to accept the thought that he might be a clone, and none of him was ready to do that yet. Cloning was something that happened to other people, mostly relatives of Scott and Jean. The thought that _he_ might be a clone was unreal, and disturbing. When Ororo had told him all about Scott and Jean's insanely convoluted past and family tree, involving clones, time travel, obsessed geneticists and alternate universes, he'd thought of Madelyne Pryor and Stryfe as figures of evil as much because they were clones as because they _had_ been evil. As if somehow being a clone made you the dark shadow of the original, by necessity. Something less, something not human-- not in the sense of being a mutant instead, but in the sense of being less worthy than human, not more.

"Why haven't you tried to destroy me?"

Magnus sighed. "I _told_ you--"

"I know what you told me. Hear me out. If I'm nothing but a copy of you... and mind you, I haven't yet accepted that, not without proof, but _if_ it's true... every case I've heard of where there's been a clone, he or she has tried to destroy the original. And generally done so in a fashion that would cause maximum damage to the innocent. Why would you take that risk, and let me live?"

"I hadn't heard of any such thing."

"The X-Men have had encounters with two clones. Both turned evil, or were evil, and left untold death and destruction in their wake."

"And I am supposed to judge you on the basis of a sample of two? Without knowing anything of the circumstances that created them, or the things they did? I called you a clone because technically that's what you are, but in fact I--" He smiled suddenly, an expression of embarrassment. "It's foolish in a way, but I've begun to think of you as a son. I know I have had a son and daughter who I have no memories of at all, who I apparently encountered and abused in the time I don't remember, and now my daughter is dead, and my son apparently hates me. I had hoped, in a way... you're clearly more _like_ me than Wanda or Pietro could possibly have been. You share some of my memories and all of my genes. You are... much like I might have been, if... if the Holocaust had not happened, or perhaps only even if Magda hadn't turned from me... like a younger, brighter, less tainted self." He held up a hand. "I know, you are your own man. I don't seek to shape your destiny. I've ruined my own, why taint yours? But you are... you are the man I might have been, and the choices you will make, of your free will, are the choices I might have made if I hadn't been permanently tainted by the darkness I grew up in. You _are_ my second chance, not because you will live out my dreams, but because your own dreams, whatever they might be, must of necessity be the ones I might have had, if I had been a better man."

So, good people had evil clones, and evil people had good ones? Joseph didn't believe that for a minute. He knew he wasn't a good man-- better than Magneto, perhaps, but not good-- and unless Magnus was lying outrageously throughout this conversation, Joseph no longer believed he was an intrinsically evil one. "I am hardly untainted."

"What have you done?"

No accusation, nothing but curiosity. Though it wasn't as if someone who thought himself to be Magneto had any room to accuse. "I have killed," he said, hesitantly. He'd never told the X-Men about this; in the light of all his other crimes, there didn't seem to be any need. 

"Tell me."

"In South America. They were drug lords, or the sort of scum that work for drug lords. They wanted me to use my powers in their service." The words became easier to say as more of them came out. "When I wouldn't, they kidnapped-- I'd been staying at an orphanage; the children found me, feverish and half-dead, on the property, and Sister Maria, the woman who cared for the children, had taken me in and nursed me through it. They kidnapped Sister Maria and the children. I tortured a man to make him tell me where they'd been taken, and then I went there." The memories rose up. "They held guns, threatened to kill the children if I moved against them. I remember thinking what fools they were, how little they understood what they were dealing with, and how very deserving of death that made them." 

"So you killed them."

"Brutally." He could still hear the screams. The rage had been wholly in control of him then. He had simply grabbed anything metal he could use as a weapon, and bludgeoned, impaled or strangled all of them. He hadn't even been particularly quick about it, let alone merciful. They had started by snarling curses and shooting at him. By the end, they had screamed, and prayed, and begged. None of it had stopped him, not until they were all dead. And then he'd rescued the children and Sister Maria, not even thinking, not even attempting to shelter the children from the carnage... and they had seen what he'd done, and they'd all turned from him in terror, cringing against the Sister. All the love they'd given him, all the eager childish worship, wiped away in a moment of rage.

"Because you were angry. Because they had threatened what you loved, and the rage had control."

There was still no condemnation in the man's voice, only understanding. It was eerie. No one else had both understood and accepted. "Yes," he said softly. 

"And did they turn from you then? The people who had cared for you, sheltered you? When they saw what you had done, what kind of monster you were, did they reject you?"

"Yes," he said, and immediately followed it with "No. In that moment, yes-- all of them. The children, Sister Maria-- but I talked to the Sister later. She, at least, had forgiven me. She said that the children would forget, in time... that I didn't have to go. I... didn't believe her. I was sure that when the children woke, they would look at me with the same fear and revulsion they had, that night..."

Magnus nodded. "So you left."

"That wasn't the only reason." Joseph poured himself a glass of water. "I needed to find my past. I had... I'd known all along that sooner or later I'd have to go, but I didn't really _want_ to know. I was convinced I'd done evil... I didn't know what, but whatever it was, I wasn't at all sure I wanted to know... and I felt as if perhaps this was the only time in my life, or at least the first time in a long time, where I was accepted. Where I could have anything approximating a home. I _knew_ it would end, sooner or later. Deep down, I even think I knew it would end that way."

"It always has," Magnus said. "Whatever you do remember of my life, you must have that in you, buried at some level you cannot access, perhaps. But it seems you remember my... lack of any connection that isn't destroyed, sooner or later."

Yes. He understood suddenly _why_ he had always felt that desperate hunger for belonging, the terror and certainty that sooner or later the X-Men would reject him and deservedly so for his crimes, the overwhelming gratitude he felt to them as a group and Rogue in particular for giving him a second chance. He was a proud man, and yet he'd clung to any scrap of friendship they'd been willing to toss him, tossing away his goal to regain his memories because they told him he'd be evil if he did and he didn't dare lose them. And because he feared becoming evil, but deep down he'd never truly believed that regaining his memories would change who he was so fundamentally. "Why doesn't that drive you, then?"

"Drive me?"

"Magneto willingly abandoned friendships and connections. I believe he and Rogue were..." Lovers, if those dreams had as much basis in reality as his nightmares did. "...close. He was once friends with the X-Men, and they all say he betrayed them... well, Storm says that, Cyclops and the other originals seem to think he was always an enemy. I couldn't understand why. To me... it seems so inevitable that sooner or later I will lose them, that they will turn from me, but I can't imagine willingly turning from them. I can't imagine the severing coming from _me_."

Magnus shrugged. "Eventually, one gets used to it."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I suppose that's because it isn't true. No. You do get used to it, the way one can get used to hunger and filth. It becomes... less horrifying, more a sad and dirty fact of life. You would give anything to change it if you could, but you no longer truly believe that can happen... so you stop reaching out, you isolate yourself and let none inside. I have done it more times than I can count. In my case, every time I remember doing it, I remember eventually the isolation growing painful enough that I would take the risk, I would indeed let someone in... and, with the exception of the situation I find myself in right now, every single time I have made a friend, in my memory, it has ended in pain and severance. I suppose that eventually I _did_ get used to it. Perhaps I turned from the X-Men merely because they're fools who will get themselves killed, and it would be entirely too hurtful to let myself care for them when they're inevitably doomed. Perhaps I did something I thought I needed to do, and they found it monstrous, and turned from me."

Actually, that sounded painfully likely. "You said you have books. They don't tell you?"

"About the X-Men, and my relationship with them? None of the books were written by people with connections to the X-Men, or if they had such, they didn't include that information. I know the X-Men opposed me in battle on many, many occasions. Then, suddenly, I was seen in public fighting by their side against a religious anti-mutant crusade. Not long after that, I became publicly affiliated with the team, to the point that they fought to protect me from other superheroes who wanted to bring me to justice. And then they all apparently died in Dallas, and some months after that I turned up as a terrorist again. There are vast holes in that, I fear. Everything in the books comes from information that was publicly available one way or another, and the X-Men are secretive, even more so than typical superheroes."

The thought occurred to Joseph that the files he wasn't allowed to access undoubtedly contained that information. When he got home, he was going to have to have a talk with someone about that. There was no reason to restrict him from those files if Magneto's memories literally were not present in his head; the whole reason they'd blocked his access was to prevent his memories from being triggered by exposure to the files, and flooding back into him. Even if they _were_ his memories, that wasn't going to happen. "What else is in those books, then?"

"Wait here," Magnus said-- apparently forgetting that Joseph was his prisoner, and couldn't very well do anything else-- and left the room hastily. He returned a few minutes later with an assortment of hardcover and trade paperback books, and piled them on the bed. "I'd also give you the videotapes of the trial, but I'm afraid I can't have you handling videotapes at the moment."

"What _did_ you do to my powers?"

"Your brain's been temporarily stripped of catalysine. Do you know what that is?"

Joseph gave him a dirty look. "I _have_ retained most of my scientific knowledge."

"I didn't know that," Magnus pointed out reasonably. "In any case, I imagine you'd probably want to read these. I'm afraid I've scrawled notes all over them-- I'm hard on books."

"I know that."

"Yes. Yes, of course you would. I wonder if your handwriting is the same?... It must be, mustn't it, or the X-Men would have figured it out already."

Joseph flipped open one of the books to a dog-eared passage, and glanced down at the barely legible German scrawled in the margin. "Yes, it's the same." He shook his head. "I may have a hard time reading this. I generally decipher my own notes by remembering what it was I wrote rather than actually reading what's there." 

"Ah, but it's invaluable if you want privacy from other people reading your notes. You don't even need to encode them."

"I've noticed that." He glanced up at Magnus. "Why are you giving me this? If your thesis is true, this isn't my life."

"You're genetically identical to me." Magnus picked up one of the books-- _Master of Magnetism_, it said on the spine, and the back of the book jacket had a photograph of Magneto, in costume but unhelmeted. "That has to mean something," he said, idly flipping through the book. "You're not me, no. But you could have been. You have the same potentials, for good or ill." He set the book down. "Perhaps if I can teach you of the mistakes _I_ made, you won't need to make them. You can learn from my experiences."

"From books? When you yourself admit there are holes in them?"

"It's better than nothing." He picked up another of the books-- _Faces of Evil: Demagogues of the 20th Century._ "Some of what's contained in these is outrageous lies-- a few of them so outrageous that I suspect even you would recognize them as such. Gabrielle Haller, who writes the chapter about me, and who in other respects seems to be sympathetic to me-- which is gratifying; she was a friend in Israel, and I knew she was my lawyer at the trial, but of course that doesn't necessarily mean a great deal-- claims that I am a gypsy!"

Joseph blinked at that. He'd figured out that he'd been born Jewish within a month of his awakening, when he'd gone rummaging through everything Sister Maria could find for him of other cultures and other ways to try to figure out what he was. "Could she have been mistaken, somehow?"

"Joseph, she was a friend of mine in Israel. No, she knew perfectly well it wasn't true. I suspect there was some sort of political nonsense going on-- Israel disavowing the evil Magneto out of fear that, in addition to awakening virulent anti-mutant hatreds, I might re-invoke anti-Semitism, too. I also find myself wondering why, given the sympathies her article shows toward me, she was willing to submit it to an anthology called _Faces of Evil_."

"I was wondering that."

"Still, from my notes-- I usually made a great number of corrections all over the page when I encountered something I knew to be false-- and from your own fragments of memory, I think you might well be as easily able to tell as I am when someone is doing more of a hatchet job than is called for."

Joseph looked down at the books, and back at Magnus. The man had just handed him what he'd craved for close to a year now-- answers about his past-- apparently without strings. These weren't propaganda pieces, and just from reading the backs of the trade paperbacks, he could tell that a number of them were extremely uncomplimentary toward Magneto. Hell, Magnus as much as admitted that the one essayist who was a personal friend had not only lied to disassociate him from her people but had published her essay in a book called _Faces of Evil_. The intent couldn't possibly be to brainwash him. From Magnus' behavior, the outpourings of confidences that couldn't very well be something he did with everyone, Joseph was beginning to think Magnus really _had_ forgotten that Joseph was his prisoner instead of his guest. 

"Even as quickly as I read, this will take me a few days," Joseph said casually. "Why don't I take them back to the mansion with me and read them there? I can always return them to a mail drop if you have one."

"That's reasonable," Magnus said. 

Joseph fought to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor. That had really _worked?_

Magnus looked at him with a puzzled expression, then burst out laughing. "Joseph, how many times must I tell you? I never intended you any harm. All I wanted was to talk to you-- of course I'd let you go when our conversation was done."

"And is it?"

He sighed. "I can't force you to believe that you're not Magneto. So yes, I suppose it is. You have the books, and I can give you the videotapes to take with you in a shielded case, to watch when your powers return--"

"Which will be?"

"In a day or so. You'll be safely back at your mansion by then."

Joseph shook his head. "Unless you made notes on those as well, it won't be necessary. I'm sure the X-Men have copies of the tapes, somewhere, and I intend to get them from them."

"Then I suppose there's no reason we can't toss the books in a bag and take you home now."

In fact, Magnus didn't drop him anywhere near home. He dropped Joseph off at an airport in Nebraska, with a bag of books and cash for a plane ticket-- apparently, unlike Joseph, Magnus remembered most of Magneto's bank account numbers. Joseph debated actually purchasing said plane ticket-- he didn't like the idea of being beholden to the X-Men for a ride home. He also thought of getting a hotel room and holing up here with his books until his powers returned. In the end, however, he did have a responsibility to the X-Men. Rogue was probably worried about him-- and he was rather worried about her, given that last time he'd seen her she'd just been electrocuted with his power. Cyclops would probably give him hell if he waited the day or so for his powers to return before contacting the X-Men. And he was entirely too large a man to be at all comfortable flying in a commercial airplane, even first class. Not to mention, he probably wasn't safe to do so-- with his body generating an EM field that he couldn't control, he was likely to cause all kinds of radio interference.

Instead, he phoned the mansion. Jean picked up the phone. "Xavier Institute of Higher Learning."

"It's Joseph, Jean. I'm glad to hear you're all right; how's Rogue?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, "How's Rogue? How are _you?_ What happened? Where are you?"

"I'm fine. I was captured, and then released. I'm in Omaha, at the airport. How is Rogue?"

"She's fine. What do you mean, you were released? Who captured you? What did they want?"

"Apparently, to have a conversation and give me some books. As for who captured me... I still haven't any definitive answer to that one." He sighed. "I'm sure I'll have to endure a complete debriefing. At the moment, however, my powers aren't operational, so I'm actually calling to see if anyone can come pick me up. Otherwise I'll just stay here until they return; I'm told they should be coming back tomorrow, and I really don't dare take a commercial flight until they do."

Another moment of hesitation. "All right. We'll send someone out to get you. See if you can find somewhere convenient for the Blackbird to put down; there's got to be an area at the airport for private flights to come in and out. It'll take us about two hours."

"I'll be waiting."

__

Next: What you've all been waiting for. Joseph and the X-Men get in each other's faces, and Joseph demands the right to know the truth about Magneto.

I love feedback, including tough critique, so let me know what you think! This series is a lot more flexible than some of my work, so feedback will have a bigger influence on its direction than on my other stories. Thanks, [Alara][1]. 

****

Places you can go!

[Part Nine of "Journeyman of Magnetism"][2]

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or

[Journeyman of Magnetism: The Main Page][3]

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[Twin Poles: The Index Page][4]

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[Back to the Magneto archive][5]

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   [1]: mailto:alara@mindspring.com
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   [3]: /xbooks/journeyman.html
   [4]: /xbooks/twin.html
   [5]: /magneto.html
   [6]: /aleph.html



	10. Chapter 9: In which Joseph finally has i...

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 9 ****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 9

Rotating Disclaimer: _I'm baaaack! This one actually came back from the betas over a year ago, and, well, I've sat on my butt. Thanks to my betas Carrie Wright, Sigil, and Dannell Lites, none of whom I've paid nearly enough attention to, but if I gutted this and rewrote from scratch it would never have gotten out, so I fixed as best as I could. _

I hope to have these out on a more regular schedule (read: not a year between chapters) from now until the story's done. Believe it or not we're halfway through this one!

***

In fact, Magnus didn't drop him anywhere near home. He dropped Joseph off at an airport in Nebraska, with a bag of books and cash for a plane ticket-- apparently, unlike Joseph, Magnus remembered most of Magneto's bank account numbers. Joseph debated actually purchasing said plane ticket-- he didn't like the idea of being beholden to the X-Men for a ride home. He also thought of getting a hotel room and holing up here with his books until his powers returned. In the end, however, he did have a responsibility to the X-Men. Rogue was probably worried about him-- and he was rather worried about her, given that last time he'd seen her she'd just been electrocuted with his power. Cyclops would probably give him hell if he waited the day or so for his powers to return before contacting the X-Men. And he was entirely too large a man to be at all comfortable flying in a commercial airplane, even first class. Not to mention, he probably wasn't safe to do so-- with his body generating an EM field that he couldn't control, he was likely to cause all kinds of radio interference.

Instead, he phoned the mansion. Jean picked up the phone. "Xavier Institute of Higher Learning."

"It's Joseph, Jean. I'm glad to hear you're all right; how's Rogue?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, "How's Rogue? How are _you?_ What happened? Where are you?"

"I'm fine. I was captured, and then released. I'm in Omaha, at the airport. How is Rogue?"

"She's fine. What do you mean, you were released? Who captured you? What did they want?"

"Apparently, to have a conversation and give me some books. As for who captured me... I still haven't any definitive answer to that one." He sighed. "I'm sure I'll have to endure a complete debriefing. At the moment, however, my powers aren't operational, so I'm actually calling to see if anyone can come pick me up. Otherwise I'll just stay here until they return; I'm told they should be coming back tomorrow, and I really don't dare take a commercial flight until they do."

Another moment of hesitation. "All right. We'll send someone out to get you. See if you can find somewhere convenient for the Blackbird to put down; there's got to be an area at the airport for private flights to come in and out. It'll take us about two hours."

"I'll be waiting."

It was sunset, the sky growing dark out, but there was still enough light to read by, barely. Joseph was sitting outside the small terminal for the private flights, reading one of the biographies of Magneto, when the Blackbird screamed in and came to a landing. He walked out to meet it before the dust it had kicked up had entirely cleared, the duffelbag of books in his hand.

Jean, Scott, Iceman, Wolverine, Bishop, Cannonball and Rogue disembarked from the plane. Joseph wasn't quite able to keep a happy smile from spreading goofily across his face at the sight of Rogue, alive and unhurt. "Rogue! How are you?"

She flew over to him, grabbed him and buried her face against his chest, holding his arms painfully tightly. "Don't you _dare_ ever do that to me again, you hear?" she yelled at his chest, shaking him. "We couldn't find you with Cerebro, we didn't know if you were _dead_, if the Magneto duplicate was going to _kill_ you, try to take your place--"

"Which, in fact, we haven't verified that he hasn't done," Scott said sharply. "Rogue?"

Rogue let him go-- which was actually a relief; he was going to have nasty bruises on his arms tomorrow-- and flew backward away from him as Bishop stepped forward. "For security purposes, you must submit to another psi-scan now."

Joseph stared at him in dismay. He'd thought in the beginning that Magnus wanted to impersonate him, and knowing that the X-Men were going to check would have reassured him, then. Now that he knew better, however, the thought of facing another psi-scan seemed unbearable. "You can't simply tell from my signature?" he asked Jean.

Jean shook her head. "The other one has exactly the same signature to Cerebro that you do. I know you're not going to like this, but it has to be done."

"Did none of you _see_ him, when we fought? He looks his proper age, or at the least the age Magneto is supposed to look. Can't you simply _look_ at me and tell the difference?"

"Two of you look the same to Cerebro. You smell the same. You got the same powers," Wolverine said. "Looks don't necessarily mean anything-- we don't know he can't look younger if he wants. So. You gonna settle down and let Jeannie do what she's gotta, or...?"

"Let's not forget, you brought this on yourself when you ran off, mister," Scott said. "We can't take you back with us until we've verified you."

"Why _not?_ I know that the mansion is located on Greymalkin Lane in Salem Center, New York. I know that you are Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops. I could _fly_ back to the mansion once my powers return-- I do understand your need to verify me, but there's no reason to do it here and not return to the mansion first."

"And there's also no reason not to do it here, unless you really do have something to hide," Scott said.

"He's real eager to get back to the mansion before anyone psi-probes him," Bobby said.

Joseph took a deep breath. A temper tantrum would _not_ help his cause right now. "Considering how very unpleasant I found the last psi-probe, why should this surprise you?"

"Unpleasantness is a fact of life in our line of work," Bishop said. "I cannot help thinking that Magneto would have understood this."

"A pity he's not here, then," Joseph snapped. "I don't object to a psi-probe, but I _do_ object to having it done in public, with more than half the team looking on."

"I'm sorry," Jean said firmly. "I know how bad it was for you last time, but even if you _are_ Joseph, we have to be sure that you haven't been brainwashed or conditioned before we get into close quarters with you. After what happened to Alex, we can't trust _anyone_ who's been out of the sight of the rest of his team." She left unspoken the "and we never trusted _you_ in the first place," but Joseph was sure he could hear it anyway, especially when he considered how absurd her statement was. The X-Men were not checking each other every time they went shopping, for god's sake.

He had absolutely no desire to let Jean into his head. Not after last time, and not after the revelations he'd just had. He certainly didn't want her, of all people, knowing he was beginning to question just how much of a monster Magneto had truly been. On the other hand, he had no powers right now, and even if he _had_ had them, it hadn't escaped his notice that there was no way they needed over half the team to come pick him up at the airport. They'd come geared up to fight him, and if he resisted the mindprobe, they'd only be sure he had something to hide, take him down, and force him. Mind racing, he cast around for an alternative-- ah. Perhaps. He turned to Rogue. "Rogue, would you do it, then?"

She blinked at him. "What?"

"According to the studies I've done on your power, if you touched me only for a moment, it would give you access to my mind and powers, but with no risk of it becoming permanent. If you did that, you could _see_ if I were brainwashed or conditioned."

"Yeah, and if you were, maybe you could infect Rogue with it too," Iceman said. "We're not falling for it, 'Joseph.'"

_I **will** control my temper._ "Shall we avoid the _completely_ absurd, Iceman? If I could 'infect' Rogue, I could also 'infect' Jean. Or Psylocke, or whoever else invaded my mind. I would prefer that Rogue do it because my shields are not proof against her, and because, quite frankly, if _someone_ is to go rummaging through my mind I would rather it be one I consider a dear friend." He left the implications of that statement and his feelings toward the rest of the X-Men hanging.

"I-- I haven't used the power, except to kiss Remy that once, in... hell, not since I tried to use it on you," Rogue said. "And the last time I tried to use it on you, it didn't work."

"Please, Rogue." He glanced at the others. "May I speak to her privately a moment?"

"Jean, is there any reason it shouldn't be Rogue?" Scott asked.

"It would definitely be easier on Joseph. I don't know if it would be easier on Rogue, though."

"I can make that call for myself," Rogue said. "Come on, sugar, let's talk." She lifted him and flew him to the top of the Blackbird, not nearly carefully enough of the bruises she'd already put on his arms. "Okay, what's up?"

"Nothing's 'up'," he said. "It's just-- I don't want Jean in my head. Again. If someone must know my innermost thoughts, I'd rather it be you-- though in some regards we might both be embarrassed," he couldn't quite help a lopsided grin, "at least you I trust."

"It's just-- what if something goes wrong? Or what if it doesn't work?"

"Nothing will go wrong. As long as you only touch me a brief moment, you can't possibly permanently absorb me. The records say you used to use this power all the time, Rogue-- what happened?"

She shrugged. "I got tired of having people in my head."

Joseph shook his head. "Then if this would truly be painful for you, don't do it. I'll take my chances with Jean. It's only--"

"It's only that it's gonna hurt like hell if Jean does it, and put you in a rotten mood, and make Scott and Bobby smug because they got their way. Right?"

"Well... yes. But if it would hurt you--"

"It won't hurt me. I wouldn't do this if you still had your memories, you know-- I absorbed Magneto _once_, and that was enough. But Jean says you don't remember any of that. Just one thing, I don't know if this will work. The last time I tried, with Magneto--"

"I probably resisted," Joseph said, and wondered if it had even been him. "I won't, this time." He took a deep breath. "Only, I must ask. You will see-- questions, in my mind. Doubts. Until I've resolved the answers for myself, please don't tell them. I won't-- I am no less committed to the dream, whatever the answers I find may be, and I will not be any sort of threat to the X-Men regardless."

"I can't promise that. If they need to know--"

"Then _I_ will tell them. But I want to tell them myself."

She sighed. "I'll do what I think's right, you know that, but if I can do what you're asking, in good conscience, I will."

"That is all I could ask."

"All right." She rested her hands on his shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed him gently on the lips. He had time to notice that she tasted as sweet as he had believed she would, and then everything went black.

Rogue leaned back from the unconscious burden in her arms, the usual wild rush of power flooding into her, making her slightly dizzy. It was more than usual-- she hadn't absorbed anyone in months, and Joseph's power was a headier one than the usual ones she absorbed. Nothing she couldn't handle, though. Curious; it felt like there was more here than the time she'd absorbed Magneto's powers, and all the X-Men's, to fight the Entity in Africa, and less than when she'd tried to absorb Magneto and simply had run out of room for his power before she ever even got to his mind, the day of Illyana's funeral. 

It took several seconds for the memories to come in, a pattern she was used to. What amazed her was how little there was. Recent memories were there as clear as anyone's, bright and vivid, but the sense of pressure she was used to, of a whole life rushing in on her at once... not there. There was no pressure. There was no whole life. Joseph's memories went back about a year, and before that, nothing.

She resisted the temptation to prowl around in his memories of her. There had been a time when she'd have done that without a second thought, like a hungry thing starved for other people's lives, even if only for a little while. That aspect of her power, of her personality, terrified her now. It was wrong and it was bad and it was just _wrong_. With an effort of will, she concentrated on recent memories, the episode with Magnus (Magnus? Joseph called him Magnus?) unreeling in her mind.

Oh, no. Oh, _no._ Rogue could see, all too easily, _why_ Joseph hadn't wanted Jean inside his head. She could see his fear and confusion around the clone possibility-- and Jean was hardly one to be objective there-- and his hunger to believe in Magnus, to believe the man was telling the truth-- that Joseph wasn't truly Magneto, that Magneto wasn't truly evil. Something she'd believed once herself, several betrayals ago. There'd been a time when she'd trusted him, when she'd felt he was, at least, brutally honest about what he believed in. But that had been a long time ago, and since then she'd come to see him as a manipulator so good, he actually looked forthright and direct. It was some talent-- her momma was the best manipulator Rogue'd known, and _she_ couldn't make herself appear to not be manipulative. 

Even now, knowing what she did, Rogue could look back over Joseph's memories of the encounter with "Magnus" and remember her own encounters with the man, remember the romance that had never quite happened, the things she'd thought they had in common, and she _wanted_ everything Magnus had said to Joseph to be true. She _wanted_ to believe, just as she'd wanted to believe in the Savage Land, and again in the battle over the nukes, and again on Asteroid M, and finally at Illyana's funeral, when the last of her desire to believe had died, she'd thought. She honestly wanted to trust him, as much as Joseph wanted to. Unlike Joseph, however, she knew better. Whether he was the real Magneto or not, whether Magnus was a mere double or not, she could compare Magnus' behavior in the memories she'd absorbed to the real Magneto's behavior, and he was a hell of a lot closer than Joseph was now, whoever and whatever Joseph had once been. And Joseph didn't _have_ the experience of being betrayed by the man. He had only his knowledge of himself as an essentially good person with too violent a temper, nothing that even compared to Magneto's cruelty and madness-- of course he'd fall for it, hook, line and sinker.

No, she couldn't keep this from the X-Men. She had to warn them that Joseph was being deceived, that he might be lured back into Magneto's madness by a duplicate who offered him what he most wanted to believe...

...except, what if it was true?

What if she _had_ been right about Magneto the first time, and wrong now-- what if he were, indeed, a basically decent man driven over the edge by memories of horror? She'd only experienced those memories once, and it had sworn her off ever trying to take Magneto again-- it had taken a lot of nerve to try to take him when he'd attacked at Illyana's funeral, and in amidst the horror that her attack hadn't disabled him, there had been relief that she wasn't getting his memories again. She'd seen Magneto's nightmares, those nights in the Savage Land...

...but then he'd killed Zaladane, and refused to listen to her, and brainwashed her, and tortured the Professor, and attacked at Illyana's funeral...

...and what if it were true that he didn't remember any of that? Joseph should be proof enough that a Magneto who didn't remember the horrors he'd committed wasn't necessarily doomed to repeat them...

Except that Joseph might not _be_ Magneto.

Her head hurt, and she couldn't untangle it. If she told the others, they'd protect Joseph, sheltering him from his double's temptations, at the cost of his freedom. It already hurt her that they'd had to lock away half the database from him, that they couldn't let him go anywhere without her or some other trusted X-Man tagging along, that they had to smash down his natural pride and strength and assertiveness because those traits would lead him back to being Magneto. They had already taken away too much from him, far too much, and he didn't even realize it. She couldn't bear to take more... but it wouldn't be up to her. If she told Scott, that would be it-- Joseph would end up practically under house arrest to prevent his doppelganger from getting at him. And if he chafed at it, he'd come under suspicion. And eventually he'd blow up and flee, or get the crap kicked out of him for trying.

She couldn't do that to him. But she couldn't let him just fall under the duplicate's spell, either. 

Deep breath. Okay. She'd kept secrets from the team before. She hadn't sold out her momma when she'd had occasion to, she'd never told any of them what she half-suspected about Remy, and for that matter she probably knew vulnerabilities in Magneto that she'd never used nor told a soul. She could do this. Keep an eye on Joseph herself, don't let him out of her sight, and when he inevitably went back to Magnus for more information, she would glue herself to his side this time. 

And maybe a miracle would occur, and Magnus would turn out to be telling the truth.

Yeah, right.

By the time Rogue set Joseph back down on the ground, he was waking up. "He's clean," he heard her announce to the gathered X-Men. A tension he hadn't been entirely aware of feeling melted away. Rogue hadn't betrayed him. He would have time, time to think about what Magnus had said and what he believed of it before dealing with the X-Men's knee-jerk distrust and fear of anything to do with Magneto.

"All right." Scott took a deep breath, and then looked at Joseph with what Joseph was quite sure would be a glare if his eyes were visible. "You're in deep trouble, mister. Do you know how lucky you are you weren't _killed?_... No, of course you don't."

"Actually, yes I do. I was there, after all." He picked up his bag, a little shakily. "And while I don't doubt I won't get out of this lecture so easily, it _would_ be nice if we could at least get underway first. I don't want to have this discussion out here in public."

Scott drew in another breath, slowly, as if controlling himself. "Get in the Blackbird."

He was angry. Well, Joseph supposed he had right to be. He _had_ been right-- it had been a damnably foolish thing to pursue Magnus, and it _could_ very well have ended very badly. Joseph obeyed, taking a seat near the back. Bishop sat next to him, an unmistakable signal-- Bishop was one of the best qualified to take him down even if he _had_ his powers. Bobby Drake was assigned to pilot this time, as he generally didn't pilot on a mission when there were better qualified X-Men, and therefore on milk runs like this he was asked to get in the practice. It was something Joseph himself had been asked to do a few times, as he was supposed to maintain a level of piloting skill despite the fact that under most circumstances he could _lift_ the Blackbird and fly it if he wanted to.

"All right." Scott's expression was grim. "Explain what happened."

Joseph nodded, turning in his seat so none of the X-Men would be at his back. Wolverine was sitting in the seat behind him, and not being able to see him was making Joseph uncomfortable. "Very well. This morning-- or whenever it was; I spent some time unconscious--"

"It was this morning, if you're talking about breakfast," Rogue said.

"Very well, this morning then. I received a persistent electromagnetic signal, which I eventually realized was Morse code, spelling my name."

"So that's what it was," Rogue murmured.

"I decided to investigate--"

"Why did you tell Rogue and Gambit that it was likely a broken transformer?" Bishop asked, glaring at him.

"I didn't want them involved. It seemed most likely to me that a former friend of Magneto's was trying to contact me, and I felt, and continue to feel, that I will be most effective to the X-Men if I _don't_ go about antagonizing Magneto's former friends unless they prove themselves active enemies to the X-Men."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jean asked.

Joseph took a deep breath, controlling his temper at the interruption. "There are many circumstances under which it might be valuable to have connections to those who aren't normally on our side. It presents an alternate source of information, and a means of accomplishing things through diplomacy rather than brute force."

"Am I dreaming?" Bobby asked. "Did Magneto just say that it's better to use diplomacy rather than beating people up? Someone pinch me."

"Shaddap and pilot before you crash us into something, Bobby," Rogue said, in a joking tone.

Joseph pretended the interruption hadn't happened. "Besides, just because a person opposes the X-Men on ideological grounds does not necessarily mean they will be our foes in every regard. I've met Magneto's followers, and some of them are not evil people."

"When did you meet Magneto's followers?" Bishop's usual tone of suspicion had intensified to the point where, if Joseph hadn't been powerless, he was sure Bishop would be attacking him to try to drain off his energies and make him harmless. He tried to pretend he didn't notice. He'd saved the world, after all; he had no reason to be ashamed.

"A few weeks ago. I impersonated Magneto to stop Exodus from killing several million people. And I returned to the X-Men afterward, which should answer any questions you might have about my loyalties."

"Or, it could say you've been hiding out with us while getting ready to make your big comeback and trash the mansion while we're vulnerable, or something," Drake said.

Wolverine shook his head. "Ain't really Maggie's style. Man's generally honest when he's trying to kill you."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but he did lie to us New Mutants pretty bad," Cannonball said, shooting a glance at Joseph.

"I ain't gonna apologize for Magneto or try to defend him... but I always wondered about that, myself. If the man wanted you to be his new Baby Brotherhood, he sure as hell didn't go about it right. Can't help but think Maggie would've been smarter, if that was what he wanted."

"We aren't really in a position to speculate on Magneto's motives in the past," Scott broke in. "I'm more interested in the present. You didn't want to antagonize a former friend of Magneto's on the chance you could use that person as an ally now, yes, I've got that, but that still doesn't answer why you didn't bring Rogue or Gambit with you."

"I didn't want a fight. If I ran into the Acolytes, I suspected very strongly that if _any_ X-Men were with me, a fight would ensue."

"That wasn't your judgement to make," Scott said levelly.

That infuriated Joseph. In his coldest voice, he said, "And pray tell, whose was it? Yours? I do not recall making you, or any other X-Man, final arbiter of my life and what I do with it, Cyclops. Should I choose to take a risk, based on my judgement of the situation, I will do so. I am amnesiac, not a moron."

"But there's a lot of things you don't know," Rogue said. "It'd just be _smarter_ to talk to another X-Man. We've got experience, and with your amnesia, you're missing a lot of that."

"Agreed, but when it comes to my past life, I can't trust you not to be trigger-happy. Even you, Rogue, tried to kill me the first time you met me, when I had just saved you from the Friends of Humanity."

"That was different! I didn't know you had amnesia!"

"But it illustrates my point, as does the recent incident. I was having a relatively civil conversation with the doppelganger, who did not seem to me to be a pressing threat--"

"Not a pressing threat?" Cyclops interrupted. "Mister, if you're trying to convince us to let you run around making judgement calls on your own, that just shot you down. I don't know about the planet _you_ come from, but here on Earth, when an amnesiac reformed supervillain is confronted by his duplicate, it _generally_ means there is a threat-- especially when said duplicate nearly kills two of the X-Men."

"He didn't try to kill anyone until we attacked him!" Joseph snapped. "I had the situation under control until you arrived--"

"Maybe you did," Scott snapped. "And maybe he was lulling you into a false sense of security. And maybe, just maybe, if things had gone differently and you hadn't been so lucky, he'd have killed you and replaced you before we had a _chance_ to show up."

"What use is it to speak of maybes, Cyclops? That's not what happened."

Scott let out an exasperated sigh. "Joseph. I know you're a bright man, so try to avoid sounding like an idiot. You are currently the least experienced of all the X-Men, with your amnesia. Moreover, you've made more enemies than any one other of us and possibly more than the entire team, and given the length of your career and the number of people who've observed you when you were Magneto, most of those enemies know your capabilities better than you do. It doesn't even come down to a question of trust, in this case. You are _not_ to go running off on your own, however good your reasons might be, for the simple reason that you are easier to trick or lie to than any of us, easier to take by surprise, and you've got a lot more people out for your head than we do. You _need_ us, mister."

"Do I?" asked Joseph softly, coldly. "I thought I was in the X-Men to make up for my past crimes, not to win protection."

"_All_ the X-Men run a risk, whenever we separate from the group, of being attacked. You're the most likely to get hit and the least prepared to deal with it. I'd say that means you need us, yes. Now if you're going to let your pride insist that you can take care of yourself, by all means, walk out the door as soon as we touch down, because we don't need that big of an idiot on the team. You can be taken down when you're by yourself. You have been. You were today. Am I getting through?"

"And so what am I to do when a crisis occurs relating to Magneto's past, ask for an X-Man to please escort me across the street to the conflict?"

"You might want to consider asking your _teammates_ for backup, yes. That's what _teammates_ are for, in case you hadn't noticed. You might have been a solo act for years, Joseph, but with your amnesia you _can't_ do it anymore unless you want to end up dead, brainwashed or worse. Next time, if there's a situation and you're that sure the X-Men will handle it badly, at least _talk_ to us first. Maybe we could have set up something with radio monitoring or Cerebro or something else to keep an eye on you in case you needed backup, without interfering with your strategy. You don't know, because you didn't ask."

Intellectually Joseph knew Scott was right, at least as far as the danger to himself went. He had encountered enough of Magneto's enemies to know that he was not nearly the match for them he wanted to be. But he was far too angry to back down in front of Scott or the rest of the X-Men, now, and he didn't appreciate being lectured as if he were a child. "And perhaps you would simply have forbidden it and lost an opportunity."

"Let me make myself clear, then, if you won't listen to reason. You're not to go off on your own, again. Period. I don't care what your reasons are. Take Rogue, take Cannonball, take whoever you want but you will take someone for backup the next time you go on _any_ mission, or you're out of the X-Men and we'll consider you a potential threat, given the likelihood of you getting brainwashed or reverting on your own. Understand?"

"Perfectly," Joseph bit off. Let Scott have his power trip. Joseph would do as he wished and as he felt he needed to, in his judgment, and if it meant leaving the X-Men so be it. He was beginning to chafe at their attitude anyway.

"What's in the bag?" Bishop asked.

It took a moment to shift mental gears-- Joseph had almost forgotten about that bag. He glared at Bishop, unable to move away from his anger completely, but in truth he supposed the security-obsessed mutant had a right to know. Resisting the temptation to say something sarcastic and unrevealing, he forced down the anger enough to give a straight answer. "Books about my past."

The satchel was yanked out of his grasp by Jean's TK. She pulled it to herself and dumped the books in her lap.

Rage spiked again. Joseph clenched his fists, distantly aware that his powerfield was building, but erratically, uncontrolled. His emotions affected his powers right now; he had to get them under control. "I don't recall granting you permission to do that," he said icily. "Had you asked, I would have shown them to you."

"I thought we agreed you weren't going to try to research your past!" Rogue said. "All's it takes is some guy who says Magneto ain't evil to talk you into going back on your word?"

"That was what I thought, too," Scott said. He looked up from the books at Joseph. "Well?"

He really wanted to stand up and pace. It wasn't safe to do that on a moving plane when he had no powers, but he really, really wanted to. It was an effort to keep his voice level, to keep the growing rage out of it. "I agreed to such a stricture because I feared, as you did, that learning of my past might awaken that past in me, and I would be Magneto. I wanted that no more than you did. But _your_ wife confirmed that Magneto's mind is no longer any part of mine. I have no reason to remain ignorant of my past, now that we know I cannot recover it."

Jean looked up. "He has a point, Scott. There's no way reading about his past can re-awaken it, when the memories simply aren't there at all."

"No? You're not thinking things out, Jean. Yes, he doesn't have the memories. But he subscribed to Magneto's beliefs once, obviously. Who's to say that if he read about them, and the reasons he had them, he might not come to the conclusion that they were the right ideas after all?"

"Oh, if you're going to go _that_ far, why not put a bag over my head?" Joseph exploded, getting to his feet. "Am I to be denied the freedom to acquire knowledge and make decisions for myself for the rest of my life? You might as well simply kill me and be done with it!"

Without warning, his hair was yanked back, pulling him down into his chair. Frantically he tried to raise his forcefield, uselessly-- he still didn't have control. A fist was pressed against his neck. Stupid, stupid, hadn't been tracking them, hadn't been paying enough attention, he'd thought he was safe here, even though he'd been wary he'd still thought he was safe... "Good idea," Wolverine said.

"Wolverine!" Rogue lunged toward him, but Wolverine yanked his head back harder, baring Joseph's throat for the kill.

"Back off, Rogue. Don't wanna do this unless Cyke says, but I will if you push me," Wolverine growled.

The plane lurched. Iceman swore violently. "Scott, get over here! The instruments are shorting-- we're going down!"

"Joseph! What the hell are you doing? Wolverine, let go of him!" Cyclops shouted, while taking the controls from Bobby and trying to wrestle with the plane.

"I can't control it!" Joseph tried to pull free of Wolverine's grasp, with no success. His heart pounded with terror, and he could see his powerfield responding in kind, his EM output dramatically increasing in response to the fear, but he couldn't channel it, couldn't push Wolverine away with it. Bishop grabbed him, and the power drained away.

"I have him contained! Wolverine, release him!"

"You can't attack me without blowing a hole in the plane and probably killing half of us, bub. Keep Joey damped down, but don't crowd me. Cyke's gonna be the one to make the call."

"What call? I'm trying to keep us all from crashing, here!"

"I've got the plane, Scott." Jean's brow furrowed in concentration. "Let me take over as pilot, and I'll stabilize us. You deal with Logan."

"Let go of him, Wolverine. I mean it," Scott said, leaving the flight console to his wife and walking back to face them.

"Nope. I want you to think about this first. Sooner or later Joseph's gonna run into an idea that don't match up to the X-Men's ideals. Fact, if you try to keep those kind of ideas away from him, he'll probably get pissed off and split the team. Now, we got a choice, like he said. We can figure that if he ain't got Maggie's memories, he's got just as much chance of believing in Chuck's dream, _with_ all the facts we got, as any of us. Or, we can figure that we ain't never gonna be able to trust him, that we'd always have to watch what he learns, what he hears, what he thinks. And me, I never signed on to be the thought police. We can't trust Joey to think for himself, the only thing to do is kill him. So, your call, Cyke. Do we trust him as an X-Man, same as the rest of us, or do I put him down now?"

"I ain't never gonna forgive you if you do this, Logan," Rogue said tightly.

"I'm afraid that if you kill him, you're going to have to kill me too," Sam said. He came into Joseph's line of vision, standing straight, arms at his sides, ready and wary. "Magneto's done a lot of wrong by me and my friends, but he's done right too, and one thing he _did_ do is teach us to think for ourselves. When we wouldn't go his way, he didn't try to kill us-- he let us go. I owe him the same. Now I may not be fast enough to save him from you, but I swear to you, Mr. Logan, I _will_ avenge him if I have to."

Joseph shook his head, with difficulty, as Wolverine had a firm grip on his hair and was pushing his head up painfully with fist against his chin. "You're not... to do that. Not... for me."

"No one is killing anyone," Scott said. "I don't appreciate this little game, Logan."

"Ain't a game."

"No, I suppose not. I never thought I'd say this, but you're too damn idealistic sometimes. It's like having the Professor here still, only you pull stunts like this to prove your point when he'd just explain."

"Idealistic? Me? You know I ain't gonna cry if I have to kill Magneto for you."

"Yeah, but you know damn well I won't _give_ that order. The X-Men don't kill, especially not because someone _might_ develop inconvenient opinions. Now knock off the theatrics."

"That's all I needed to hear." Wolverine released Joseph, who breathed deeply, trying to control his racing heart. He could see now what Wolverine had been trying to do, or what he hoped Wolverine had been trying to do, but it infuriated him nonetheless-- he could fight his own battles, and he didn't need Wolverine to "help" him by terrorizing him. There had been more than one moment there when he'd actually believed he would be killed.

"May I have my bag back?" he asked icily, drawing what was left of his dignity around himself.

"Who gave you these?" Scott asked, putting them back in the bag.

Joseph waited until the bag was back in his hand before saying, "The doppelganger. Who claims that I have been misled about Magneto, or at the least, how extreme Magneto's evil was. He also claims that _he_ is Magneto, that I am not, and that he has no interest in opposing us."

Scott looked at Rogue. "You didn't say anything about this."

"I knew about it, though. Joseph promised me he'd tell you all himself. If he didn't, I would."

"And I would have mentioned it sooner had we not gotten sidetracked onto a discussion of whether to kill me or not."

"What does he claim you are, if he is Magneto?" Bishop asked.

"He says I'm a clone. I intend to check with Dr. McCoy when we get back. He claims to have lost the past 20 years of his own memories, and to be horrified to see what he as Magneto has done to his life and to mutantkind. He says he has no intents for me save that I should know I'm not Magneto. Naturally I don't intend to simply take his word for it. I don't like the thought of being a clone, and he said he wouldn't tell me who supposedly made me, except that it wasn't him and that I've already served the purpose I was born for, whatever that means."

"You ain't a clone," Wolverine said. "Clones smell different than the original. You don't."

"But he was the one who struck me down at the soccer game, and you said yourself the only scent you detected was mine. I do not see how that could be, unless he has no scent at all-- which you claim is impossible-- or his scent is indistinguishable from mine."

Wolverine frowned. "Good point."

"Perhaps he is the Magneto from the alternate universe," Bishop said, "or, conversely, Joseph is. Would an alternate universe duplicate have the same scent as the original?"

"I guess. Never thought about it much."

"Hank would know," Bobby said. "You couldn't tell the difference between him and his duplicate from the other universe, could you?"

"Nope. Which I guess answers the question."

"I detected nothing in Joseph's mind to answer it one way or another as to whether he's from another universe or not," Jean said. "But why would the real Magneto claim you're a clone, if you're actually a duplicate from another universe?"

"Because it gives him more legitimacy that way," Scott said. "If Joseph is a clone, he's going to think of himself as less than Magneto, a mere copy. He doesn't have the legitimacy that being a cross-universe duplicate would give him."

_Is that how you made your wife and your cloned son feel? Is that why they turned on you?_ Joseph felt a sudden fierce anger. "Whoever I am, whatever I am, I am myself," he said. "Perhaps I am Magneto. Perhaps I am a Magneto from another world. Perhaps I'm a clone of Magneto. But in no way am I a 'mere copy' of _anyone_. If I am a clone of Magneto, I'll deal with that once I have confirmation. But I refuse to believe that _I,_ who have struggled to better myself, am less than Magneto, who gave in to his madness. If I am a clone, I might be an improvement on the original, or the same, but no _less_."

"He's certainly full of himself enough to be the real Magneto," Iceman said, quietly, but not quietly enough.

_Keep pushing. Just keep pushing._ Joseph took a deep breath. He'd be a fool to confront Iceman now, when he had no powers. Later, if the man kept it up.

"Well, of course," Scott said. "I'm glad you feel that way." It took Joseph a second to realize Scott was talking to him, not Bobby. "It can be very destructive for a clone to get the idea that he or she is less than the original; it's just that that's what they all _have_ done, in my experience."

"Well, there were circumstances too, Scott," Jean said.

"Let's not get into that. The point is that if Joseph is able to maintain a positive attitude about the whole thing, it would be best. If you're _not_ Magneto, obviously there'd be no reason to consider you a threat-- except, of course, that we wouldn't know who made you or why. That's something we'd definitely want to investigate, and clearly the real Magneto, if he is the real Magneto, knows something. If you are Magneto, then we'll have to deal with the man who thinks he is. If he's willing not to fight us, fine, as long as he doesn't go back to his old ways, which would force our hand. But one way or another, let's have Hank examine you and try to figure out who you really are, with this new information in mind."

"That was my plan," Joseph said. "And I want the restrictions taken off me. I want to be able to view anything in the database that anyone else can, and be only as answerable to authority as any other X-Man."

"After you're checked out, we'll discuss it," Scott said. "This clone thing raises a whole new host of possible problems-- if you're a clone, we have to consider why you were created, and if you might unknowingly present a threat to the X-Men."

"I'm pretty sure he has no buried programming," Jean said. "I think I'd have noticed it, having seen what it looks like before."

"We can't factor out Sinister, though. Or some other parties unknown. Let's see what Hank says before making any decisions."

"I will not live under the restrictions you've placed on me any longer," Joseph said evenly. "If you believe there is reason not to trust me because I may unwittingly serve someone else's agenda, I will leave the X-Men. I have no desire to be used by others to harm you all, nor do I have much taste anymore for being treated like a pariah. Either I am made a full X-Men and given as much freedom as the rest of you, or I will remove myself."

"And go where? We've just been through this. Even if you're not Magneto, the world will still think you are. You'd be in a lot of danger from Magneto's enemies, and leaving yourself open to whoever it is who might want to use you."

"I will deal with that if and when I must. But this is not negotiable."

"It's the right thing to do," Bishop said. "If there's some chance he might be used as a tool against the X-Men, he doesn't belong here."

"I think we're all jumping the gun here," Rogue said. "Let's not say anything about Joseph leaving or not till we hear from Hank, okay?"

Scott nodded. "All right. We'll table this until later."

__

Next: Hank has theories, and Margaret and Magnus have apples. 

I love feedback, including tough critique, so let me know what you think! This series is a lot more flexible than some of my work, so feedback will have a bigger influence on its direction than on my other stories. Thanks, [Alara][1]. 

****

Places you can go!

[Part Ten of "Journeyman of Magnetism"][2] (but not yet! I haven't written it yet)

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or

[Journeyman of Magnetism: The Main Page][3]

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or

[Twin Poles: The Index Page][4]

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or

[Back to the Magneto archive][5]

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or

[Back to the Aleph Press page][6]

   [1]: mailto:alara@mindspring.com
   [2]: /xbooks/twin1j.html
   [3]: /xbooks/journeyman.html
   [4]: /xbooks/twin.html
   [5]: /magneto.html
   [6]: /aleph.html



	11. Chapter 10: In which Joseph and Scott di...

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 10 ****

Twin Poles One: Journeyman of Magnetism Part 10

Rotating Disclaimer: _The Denver geography is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Xenith was a real restaurant in 1995 (I don't think it still exists) and it really did serve portions of food that were tasty, highly decorative, and way too small. It was also really a non-smoking restaurant. My boss was considerably better at handling Denver's passion for healthy non-smoking environments than Margaret's patient._

Speaking of Margaret's patient, any appearances of cigarette-smoking lung-cancerous black ops conspirators crossing over from the X-Files did not happen. We have plausible deniability. You have no proof. No one will believe you. I wouldn't pursue that line of questioning if I were you. 

***

Back at the mansion, Joseph barely had time to dump the books he'd acquired in his bedroom before Hank McCoy barrelled cheerfully down on him and half-dragged him off to the lab for tests, having been told by Cyclops what was going on.

The tests were ridiculous and intrusive, in Joseph's opinion. Five separate tissue samples-- two skin, one on his chest and one on the back of his leg; one scraping from his inner cheek; and two painful muscular samples, one from his upper arm and one from his thigh. Two different blood samples, taken two hours apart. Urine sample. Semen sample ("Why the devil do you need _that?_" "Spermatocytes are more fragile than other bodily cells; if you have experienced lengthy exposure to cosmic rays in your lifetime, as the true Magneto should have from residing on an orbital asteroid, you are more likely to show spot mutations in your sperm than anywhere else on your body. Will you need a magazine to assist you? Logan and Bobby have left the lab with a goodly supply for this purpose--" "_NO._") Brain scan. Several different EM-output and control tests, taken over the course of six hours as his powers slowly started to resurface. And after all that, Hank declared he wouldn't have results until tomorrow afternoon-- which, given that by now it was 4 am, was not that unreasonable, but Joseph was not feeling very charitable about it, and carped about the delay until Hank kicked him out of the lab.

He had no concept of time. He was tired, but his undefined period of unconsciousness, as well as the seventeen hours of sleep after the mental probe, had left his biological clock all askew, and he was entirely too nervous to sleep. Besides, all he'd had to eat all day was a roast beef sandwich and an unsatisfying burger at the Omaha airport. Joseph's first thought was to go the kitchen and make something to eat. After making a monstrous turkey sandwich with raw spinach in place of lettuce, though, he decided he wasn't going to sit around in the kitchen where any still-wakeful X-Men might stop in and bother him. Right now he was feeling decidedly antisocial. And while those books were an excellent resource, the X-Men had access to something much better.

The argument with Scott had been inconclusive. That didn't matter. Joseph knew the passwords of every X-Man who'd logged into the network anywhere near him. Bishop's best security procedures included having X-Men shield their passwords from Joseph's sight when they typed them in, but Bishop apparently hadn't thought of Tempest shielding, the sort of electromagnetic shielding necessary to keep devices, or people, that could read magnetic fields from picking up the commands that went through the keyboard cables. Deliberately Joseph logged onto the network as Scott, who was asleep, and ran a database query to retrieve all the X-Men's records pertaining to Magneto and email them to his network email account. While the computer was doing that, he logged onto a different one, this time as Rogue, and started browsing the records manually. 

He was still at it when Scott walked in on him at 8 am. "Did it ever occur to you," Scott said, "that the network security would tell me that someone else was logged on as me?"

Joseph glanced over at the computer retrieving Magneto-related records. Incredibly, it was still doing it. "I didn't expect the query to take quite so long."

"That's all you have to say? You didn't expect it to take so long?"

Joseph spun in his chair to face Scott. "I told you. I will not exist under the restrictions you have placed me under. Jean has confirmed I cannot become Magneto through exposure to knowledge of him, you have confirmed you will not kill me to stop me from learning what I can, and as far as I am concerned that was the end of the argument. I would have asked you to change my access, but you were asleep."

"So you logged in as me. How long have you known my password?"

"A month. You have been known to log into Cerebro's data files at War Room meetings, several times, and the keyboards aren't Tempest-shielded."

"How many passwords do you know, then?"

"Not Gambit's or Bishop's. They change theirs every three days. And Psylocke has never logged in in front of me."

"Everyone else's, in other words."

"Yes."

Scott sighed. "Neither Gambit nor Bishop have reported any incursions onto the network we couldn't account for. So either you're damn good or you haven't used your unauthorized passwords before tonight. Which is it?"

"As much as I would like to claim to be 'damn good', the truth is I haven't used them before. Before tonight, or more precisely last night when I learned I cannot be Magneto, I feared becoming him if I should learn too much of his life. But today..." Joseph shrugged.

"And when I didn't give you permission, you made an end run around me."

"I will not come crawling to you for what by all rights should be mine, Cyclops. Besides, you proved you have no justification for keeping it from me."

"The X-Men's private databases aren't yours by any stretch of the imagination. If we authorize you to access them, it's because we trust you, not because they should be yours. And if you're talking about Magneto's memories, I thought the whole point was that we _don't_ know if you have any rights to Magneto's memories or not."

"I have every right to Magneto's memories whether I am him or not; what few fragments of memory I do have are his, so where else would I go to find _my_ memories?"

"The point is these aren't Magneto's memories. They're the X-Men's memories of Magneto. Big difference."

"And I am an X-Man. I have fought beside you, saved the world, proven myself a dozen times over--"

"And that's why I'm not reading you the riot act for this." Scott sat down heavily. "If you'd woken me up in the middle of the night to ask for access I'd have told you to go away until morning, but you're probably right. If you can't be Magneto you may as well know everything about him. If we're lucky it'll help you from making the same mistakes. I'm not thrilled about the way you did it, but I know what amnesia's like. I'm not sure I'd have been willing to wait until morning if it'd been my past in that computer."

Joseph frowned. "You have had amnesia?"

"Not like yours. When I first came to the X-Men, I could barely remember my childhood. Even now I've mostly got fragments and things my brother or my father told me. I've come to terms with it, but there was a time when I didn't remember what my parents looked like, and I didn't even remember I _had_ a brother. I thought I did but people told me I didn't, so I thought maybe I'd imagined Alex."

"I thought the two of you were closer than that."

"When we were real little, yeah. But I don't remember that. Just pieces." Scott shook his head slightly. "It doesn't matter. The point is, much as I'm sure you'd like to continue to believe I'm an unfeeling, unreasoning jerk, I have _reasons_ for what I'm doing. I want to protect the X-Men, and I want to protect you."

"I don't need the protection."

"You most certainly do. We've been through this. I'm going to make a deal with you, Joseph, pending the results Hank comes up with it. I'll give you access to the records with Magneto's history, but not some of the files on us-- the details, the private histories, our weak points. Same deal I gave Gambit before he proved himself. We don't give new X-Men full access to the files until we know we can trust them."

"And you trust Gambit?"

"The Professor did. It was the Professor who gave him sysadmin access, since he knows more about modern computer security systems than Bishop and myself combined. The Professor trusted you, too. The trouble is, it wasn't the first time Professor Xavier trusted Magneto, and the last time we all got badly burned, so I'm not willing to extend you that trust until you prove yourself to _me._"

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"Same thing you're doing. Work with us, keep your nose clean. I also want you to stay at the mansion or on the grounds unless you've got one of us with you." Joseph opened his mouth to protest. Scott held up a hand. "Don't argue with me. You made your arguments and I don't agree with them. You may be trustworthy, but you're not safe; Magneto's got too many enemies you don't know about."

"And what do I get for this largesse?"

"Don't get snide, mister. You're the one who wanted so badly to be an X-Man."

"I may be rethinking my position."

"Rethink all you want, but there's only two safe places for you in the world. With us, and with Magneto's Acolytes. And that might be safe enough for your body, but your sanity would be in danger and I think you know it."

Yes, he did know it. "What makes you think I can't carve out my own safety?"

"Because there are devices that can find Magneto specifically, and if Magneto knows how to baffle them, you didn't get that. The Avengers found you with no problem. And any innocent bystanders near you will be in danger, and I don't _want_ you running off to hollow out a mountain and brood in it like Magneto used to." He stood up. "My brother got captured and brainwashed by the Brotherhood. Hank got captured and replaced by the Black Beast. I'm not having one more X-Man disappear, especially not as one as powerful as you are with as many enemies."

"So you believe I need to stay here, with people who fear and distrust me. That I am _safer_ here than I would making my own way, or amongst people who believe I mean them no harm."

"That's right. You've done a good job of proving yourself so far. Even this--" he gestured at the computer. "If you're telling the truth about how you got the passwords, and I don't see how else you could have, then you're telling the truth about how long you've had them, and to the best of _my_ knowledge you haven't used them until tonight, to get something you were going to be given access to anyway. I'm willing to overlook you being impatient about it because I know what it's like, and the fact that you waited this long helps your case. Of course, I _am_ going to have Tempest shielding installed." He smiled. It was surprising how natural it looked, given that Joseph had _never_ seen Scott smile while talking to him.

"So long as I have the access I deserve, I don't object to that."

"Log off as me and I'll give you the access you need."

Joseph glanced at his screen. The query had finished while he and Scott talked. "Done." A few mental commands to the keyboard interface, and he was logged off. He rolled his chair out of the way, letting Scott in at the machine.

Scott logged onto the machine. "Don't change your password while you're on this one," Joseph said. "I can't read keyboard signals except at close range. You'd be more secure to go upstairs."

"I was planning on getting the Tempest shielding before I change my password, actually, but thanks for the warning." Scott pulled up the sysadmin's menu for granting user access and clicked some boxes. "There you go. Log off that other one and back in. You should have access to everything up to clearance 2, with no spot restrictions."

"Thank you."

"Get some sleep. Hank's not going to be finished until afternoon."

"I cannot sleep." 

"Read my mission logs, then. Bobby swears by them as a sleep aid." 

It took Joseph several seconds to realize Cyclops had actually joked with him, and by the time he realized it, Scott was already on his way out the door.

Denver was not her home, nor was it anywhere near her home, which was why Margaret had chosen it for her meeting with her next patient.

Magnus had the most raw power of any of her patients, but he was probably not the most dangerous. The man she had come to Denver to meet easily fit that definition. He was also one of the most valuable, and so she cultivated him, but it was vitally important to keep him off balance, keep him from learning anything about her, keep him ill and hurting but alive and dependent on her to keep him that way. So she chose Denver because it was nowhere near San Diego, but nowhere near Washington DC either, taking him far from his centers of power. 

She arrived at Xenith in the body of a tall blonde bombshell, impeccably dressed in black fur and leather. It was too fancy an outfit for Denver, but then, Xenith, a restaurant that prided itself on its nouvelle cuisine, catered to that sort of thing-- it was where the rich businesspeople ate when they were visiting in Denver. "I have a reservation for Smith," she said. "It's for two; the other party should be here shortly."

Actually, he would probably be late, to make her wait. So she ordered her meal ahead of time, and took out the Wall Street Journal-- she preferred the Times, but the very fact that it was her preference made her choose something else, and those were the only two national papers she could find at the Denver newspaper kiosks, and she wouldn't read the local rags Denver called its papers-- and was deeply engaged in the biotech news by the time her patient finally arrived.

"Is this a good restaurant?" he asked, sitting down.

"It gets great reviews," Mystery said, putting down her paper. "I've already ordered. You go ahead and check the menu."

"Hungry?" His voice was raspy, as if he needed to clear his throat, but she knew it wouldn't help him to try.

She smiled, displaying perfect white teeth that had just the slightest hint of over-sharpness in the canines. Not an obvious sign of mutation-- just a bit off-balancing. "Food's my favorite vice."

"I prefer tobacco." He took out one of his trademark cigarettes and a lighter.

"Uh-uh-uh. Non-smoking restaurant. You wouldn't want to make a scene, so far from DC, would you?"

He glared at her, but put the cigarette away. "Deliberate on your part, I'm sure."

"Most restaurants in Denver are non-smoking. They're very health-conscious here." She smiled even more brightly. "You know, cigarettes can kill you."

"So I hear." He opened his menu and perused it a moment. She took that opportunity to study him. He was plainly unhealthy. His cheeks, always jowly, sagged more than usual, and there were bags under his flat grey eyes. His hands were more wrinkled than usual, the skin sagging slightly on them in a way that indicated to her he'd lost a lot of weight. The clothes he wore-- as usual, an utterly plain dark suit, blue shirt and tie, nothing about it to draw any attention-- had actually been carefully tailored to hide this, an effect she hadn't noticed at first. His gray hair was thinner than it had been the last time she'd seen him. Something was accelerating his decline-- the lung cancer shouldn't have progressed far enough to make him this sick in six months unless there was something else involved. Stress, most likely. Aside from his demanding job, he had her demands to worry about as well, and hiding her and his enslavement to her from his organization. He looked tired and haggard and old, though his utterly flat affect made him seem no less dangerous for all that. 

Her patient set his menu down. "So," he said. "Do I get a treatment today? We're at the six month mark."

"Of course you get a treatment. You look quite sick, actually. What do you have to pay me with?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Charles Xavier's trial," she said promptly. "How are the preparations going?"

A small smile flickered into life on his face. "They're not."

"Not?" She frowned. "They're going to let him _go?_ After all he's done?"

"Of course--" A coughing fit interrupted him, deep, hacking, lung-destroying coughs. "Of course not."

At that point the waitress arrived with Mystery's food, and took her companion's order. Her meal-- roast lamb and mashed potatoes-- was savory and decorative, the meat and potatoes arranged into an artistic rendition of a mountain of potato surrounded by bits of meat, with thin lines of sauce swirled into designs across the plate and the food. It was a rather small portion, though. Tasty, but there had better be some good desserts here, or she'd need a second meal.

After the waitress was gone, she washed down some food with her Coke-- she'd never get used to how tasty Coke was after fifteen years without it-- and said, "So, if they're not letting him go, and the trial's not proceeding, is he dead?"

"No. Most likely not. Bastion's group has him." He tapped his fingers nervously, obviously deep in the grip of nicotine craving. "As far as our group is concerned, he's not valuable enough to wrestle with Bastion for control, so we allowed Bastion to take custody."

Mystery scowled. "Not acceptable."

"It's a fait accompli, my--" The coughing started again. "--dear." He choked down a glass of water. Politely she waited until he was done.

"What does Bastion want with him?"

"Oh, most likely information on the X-Men. Bastion's expressed concern that if we allow Xavier to stand open trial, we can expect a terrorist assault from them, and after they did away with so many of the non-mutant operatives, it'll be difficult to contain them. I believe his intention for Xavier is to use him to devise protocols to stop the X-Men if they do attack."

"Do you really see the X-Men as such a serious threat?"

"Well. They were seen working with Magneto during the whole Onslaught affair. Even if they hadn't annihilated their competition, I'd say that speaks for itself."

So the decoy had done his job, then. Too bad the X-Men continued to be such morons that they'd let the world believe they had murdered the other heroes in destroying Onslaught. She hadn't been there, but she had been involved in purging Onslaught from Erik-- if it had survived that, it would not have died easily. 

She knew the man in front of her well enough to have developed _some_ ability to read emotions in that nearly emotionless, calm voice. "But you don't actually think the threat is that serious."

He coughed again, but got it under control faster this time. "I didn't say that." 

"Would you let Bastion run things if you did?"

"Touché." He settled on munching a dinner roll as an apparent substitute for the cigarette he couldn't have. "No, I think Bastion's fear of mutants is extreme, and that he's not correctly locating the threat. Ordinary mutants, or even the type who choose to call themselves 'heroes' or 'villains', are an exploitable resource, and breed less than baseline humanity. The real threat Bastion should be looking for comes from those few mutants who seek aggressively to replace humanity through genetic conquest." He looked straight into her eyes as he said the last. Though her control didn't break, though her expression didn't change, she felt a spike of adrenaline shoot through her veins. He was targeting _her_, her goals and her fellows in seeking them. She wondered if he knew it, and suspected he did.

"It doesn't suit my purposes that a resource like Xavier remain in Bastion's hands," Mystery said, sipping her Coke. "I want him out and I want him to stand trial for his crimes."

"I'd think you'd prefer such a fate for such a high-profile mutant. It'll hardly do your people any good to bring Xavier's crimes into the public eye."

That was what Magnus would say, if she'd been stupid enough to tell him what she was planning, which of course she was not. It didn't matter. "Things couldn't get significantly worse for mutantkind's public image. That's not what I'm concerned with. Xavier's followers need to be taught a lesson. They see a great man, a mentor, a teacher. They need to see him for what he truly is."

"So you can confirm that he trained the X-Men?"

"Nice try." She smiled thinly. "I confirm nothing, except that Xavier is an influential figure, a mentor to many mutants and the founder of a philosophical movement within the mutant community. He has to be made an example of."

Her patient would far more easily accept that explanation than the truth. She had to seem ruthless to him, without weakness, like himself, or he would see her as weak and redouble his efforts to free himself. She could never let him know the truth.

The truth was a drooling, diapered shell that had once been the man she'd loved, or someone very much like him. The truth was the man who'd saved her from hell in another world crying hysterically, clinging to her as the memories her treatments restored to him broke like tsunamis against his fragile mind, smashing it to pieces again. The truth was a white-haired man who'd once been one of the most dynamic, most powerful presences she'd known being a ghost, sitting silently and staring, answering questions in monosyllables or not at all, eating and sleeping but doing nothing else to indicate he was alive.

Charles Xavier had broken Magnus, shattered him into a billion pieces and left him around for someone else to put back together. In a world that no longer existed, Xavier had at least had the balls to try to fix what he'd wrought-- and died for it, leaving his blood on Magnus' conscience, crippling Magnus _again_ and making him unable to work together with the X-Men, or do very much useful at all, until nightmare had overtaken them all and there was no longer any choice, or any hope. In this world, Xavier would earn the punishment for his crimes, for Magnus, blankeyed and practically foaming at the mouth, slicing her head off with a whirling blade and then begging for death rather than endure being possessed by an entity that could make him do such things. But he'd earn the punishment cleanly, without bloodying Magnus or burning what few bridges he had to the X-Men. And the X-Men would either learn their mentor's true nature, and grow wiser and stronger, or they would turn on the government that had punished him, growing more paranoid and more willing to make pre-emptive strike. Either way, it would shore up this world against the nightmare that had consumed hers. 

"That might be--" He was racked with coughing for a moment again. "--difficult. Bastion has a lot of influence."

"More than yours?"

He looked at her levelly. "In the matter of mutants, perhaps. There's some suspicion that I might be compromised."

His food arrived then, along with a bottle of wine that he carefully sniffed and sipped before pronouncing it acceptable. Mystery didn't like the taste of alcohol enough to bother indulging; if she was in a safe place and wanted to get inebriated, there were easier ways. 

"That might be a problem," she said. "I can only help you out so long as you can help me. If they believe you to be compromised, that threatens our working relationship."

"I'd recommend giving me something I can take back to them," he said. "My lungs are a merely personal benefit, but if you give me something my colleagues would consider valuable, I can turn my relationship with you into an asset." Bland grayish-blue eyes looked at her intently, emotions sliding off their smooth surface as if they were greased marbles. He gave nothing away. Didn't change the fact that he was full of shit.

"Anything in mind?"

"Did you ever have dealings with a Dr. Nathan Milbury?"

She mopped up the last of her potatoes with her last piece of meat, and stuffed it in her mouth. "The name's vaguely familiar."

"We believe he goes by a _nom du guerre_ that might be somewhat more recognizable-- Mr. Sinister."

If she didn't have total control over her own body, and if she hadn't been exerting such control over her autonomic nervous system since this meeting started, she might have choked. They'd tied Milbury to Sinister? Nat was going to have a fit, if she told him, which she probably wouldn't. He wasn't _her_ Nat, and the stories she'd heard from Callisto and young Sarah painted him as a far more vicious and irrationally evil SOB than her teacher had been, though he seemed as urbane and controlled as the man she remembered. There was a good possibility that it would come to war between them sooner or later, and right now her only advantage was knowing him better than he knew her. No, she wouldn't tell him. Being able to sic her patient on him was a useful trump card she should keep in reserve.

"Pretty lame name. What about him?" she asked.

"Well. If your resources could locate him and give me information as to his whereabouts and activities, that'd go a long way toward restoring me to grace, so to speak."

She shook her head. "If I get such information, I'll definitely consider it. You're valuable to me. But I _need_ Xavier pulled out of there and put on trial, by any means necessary. I can turn up the political heat if I have to to give you ammo. But it absolutely has to be done."

He had an extended coughing fit. "I see," he said weakly, when it was done and he could speak. "Do what you can, and I'll do what I can."

It was capitulation. He wouldn't outright say he'd do it-- that came too close to admitting his own slavery. She'd give him what he needed, tweaking some of the politicians who owed her favors to agitate for Xavier to stand trial. Perhaps she could even find a mutant criminal to toss to him, although at his level it was probably the ones she knew personally that he'd most want. But Bastion couldn't be allowed to have Xavier under any circumstances-- the man knew too damn much.

"Good to hear it," she said. "Do you want to get down to business?"

"All right." He put down his fork and put his hand out across the table. She could see his back straightening, his body going rigid, bracing for pain.

The use of her power either brought pleasure or pain. It couldn't be neutral. In its natural state, if she didn't tweak it, it caused excruciating pain, as if the mind and body rebelled against the invasion of the foreign force her power represented as strongly as they possibly could. If she tried to numb the pain sensors, what was left was a feeling of discomfort and violation. One of her patients had described it as akin to the sensation of a needle inserted through one's epidermis, moving around. It wasn't _painful_, but it felt weird and unpleasant. The only way she could avoid causing pain was to trigger sensations of pleasure-- usually manifesting as sexual pleasure, though she worked very hard on small children to make it a general endorphin rush rather than intense arousal. For young patients, friends, lovers and family-- well, not that she actually had any family-- she'd grant the pleasure. For enemies and adults under her control, she let them feel the pain. It was a good reminder that she was not benevolent, not the stereotypical gentle healer dedicated to life. She was Shiva/Kali, goddess of life and death, destruction and rebirth, and she could kill more easily than she could heal.

He gasped, sweat breaking out on his forehead, as her power moved into him, seeking out the cancer cells in his lungs and any that had metatasized elsewhere. She pushed healthy cells to regenerate, to recover the damage his cancer had done to his lungs. She broke down the tar buildup, transforming the hydrocarbons into much smaller molecules such as simple sugars and drawing them back into his cells in safe, inert forms. She found the cancer cells themselves and killed them, closing the blood vessels that fed them.

And she left a colony alive, much larger than the colony she'd left last time, nearly twice the size. 

She couldn't heal him. That would be worse than useless-- fully healed, with no more need for her, he would be a deadly danger to her. She was sure he was already trying desperately to find a way to be healed fully without her help, or a way to compel her to complete the healing. If she ever did fully heal him, he'd find a way to destroy her.

She let him go. He was breathing heavily, raggedly, but he hadn't screamed or made a scene despite the extreme pain. "That should help."

He got his breathing under control and took a few experimental deep breaths, as if checking his lung capacity. "Much. You might want to see if you can tone that down next time. I won't be any good to you if I take a heart attack."

"Your heart's perfectly healthy. There's nothing wrong with you aside from some minor joint pain, a tendency to constipation, the kind of spinal misalignments that everyone your age gets, and your lungs. I wouldn't risk such complications when it's so easy to take care of them while I'm in there anyway." She smiled. The truth was he really just _was_ that healthy; for a man in his late 50's or 60's, he'd be in excellent health if not for the cancer, which was virulent and would be terminal if she didn't keep pruning it for him. "I'll see you for another treatment in three months."

His eyebrows raised. "Three? Not six?"

"I think we need to keep a close eye on that cancer."

She wasn't fooling him, of course. She knew that he knew she was tightening the leash. But the name of the game was never to explicitly state such things, to treat their relationship like any business transaction and not like one where she had the power of life and death over him. 

"I see," he said, and stood. "I'm going to smoke. You take care of the bill."

Technically he was supposed to take care of the bill, as her patient, but she allowed him this small snit. Besides, she wanted dessert. She flagged the waitress down, learned that desserts here consisted of flavored sherbets, and ordered a raspberry one, which came as a scoop on a plate with raspberry sauce swirled artistically around it.

She finished the sherbet-- which was excellent, but too small-- and paid the bill. Outside she looked around for her patient, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Margaret smiled. Let him have his little hissyfit, stomping off because she'd left him with more cancer than usual. She'd be in touch with him in a couple of weeks to ensure he was doing her bidding, getting Xavier out of Bastion's hands and back on trial, and she'd see if she could find a bone to toss him. He'd be back in three months; his health would drive him back to her. And if he didn't, he'd be dead in four or five. 

She left the restaurant, walked to the 17th Street trolley and took it to the food court on California, where she stopped in the bathroom and transformed into a medium-height Asian woman. While transforming she absorbed all of her hair and clothing-- fur and leather was all organic-- and increased the sensitivity of her skin until it hurt, making sure he hadn't planted any bugs on her. She altered her telltale RNA signature to indicate that she was not a mutant-- mutant signature detectors didn't actually detect DNA, which was a relatively inert molecule; they used RNA detection, and while Margaret didn't dare modify her own DNA except on her upper skin cells, she could mess with volatile RNA as much as she wished. Then, generating cotton denims, a cotton t-shirt, and leather sneakers, she left, heading for the nearby Marriott hotel. She took a taxi for the airport, where she changed in bathrooms three more times before taking a flight to Philadelphia, where she would ditch her plane in Chicago and in male form get on another flight heading back to San Diego. And if he could have her followed through that many switchbacks, he deserved to find her. But she didn't seriously think he had any chance.

Next: Hank has theories, and Margaret and Magnus have apples. 

I love feedback, including tough critique, so let me know what you think! This series is a lot more flexible than some of my work, so feedback will have a bigger influence on its direction than on my other stories. Thanks, [Alara][1]. 

****

Places you can go!

[Part Eleven of "Journeyman of Magnetism"][2] (but not yet! I haven't written it yet)

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or

[Journeyman of Magnetism: The Main Page][3]

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or

[Twin Poles: The Index Page][4]

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or

[Back to the Magneto archive][5]

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or

[Back to the Aleph Press page][6]

   [1]: mailto:alara@mindspring.com
   [2]: http://www.alara.net/xbooks/twin1k.html
   [3]: http://www.alara.net/xbooks/journeyman.html
   [4]: http://www.alara.net/xbooks/twin.html
   [5]: http://www.alara.net/magneto.html
   [6]: http://www.alara.net/aleph.html



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